Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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424. To ask the Minister for Finance the number or percentage of personal injury cases that do not go to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board by veto of the insurance companies. [14035/21]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Finance, I am responsible for the development of the legal framework governing financial regulation. As such my Department does not collect the type of information being sought by the Deputy.  However, in order to help address the question, my officials examined data from the National Claims Information Database (NCID) which deals with motor insurance.  This does not show the number of cases where a respondent (or their insurer) has not agreed to an assessment by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB), or which side rejected the PIAB’s award if a claim is subsequently referred to the courts.

Data for 2019 from the NCID Private Motor Report 2 shows that the following number of motor-related injury claimants settled at each stage:

- Direct settlement before PIAB: 5,317 claimants (39.0%)

- PIAB settlement: 1,824 claimants (13.4%)

- Direct settlement after the PIAB: 1,940 claimants (14.3%)

- Litigated but settled before court award: 4,201 claimants (30.9%)

- Litigated with court award: 321 claimants (2.4%)

Separately, my officials contacted Insurance Ireland on the matter, however it does not have data on the number of claims that are consented to by insurers.  Insurance Ireland indicated that the industry supports PIAB and that it accept 90% of these case settlements.

NCID data also shows that for motor insurance, the average legal costs of settling a case through the PIAB are around twenty times lower than through court. In addition, the process of finalising cases, from accident to resolution, through the PIAB takes on average 2.5 years as against 4.5 years through the legal route. This is despite the fact that the award levels between the two channels, for cases under €100,000, are almost the same. As both the courts and the PIAB will shortly be required to base assessments on the new Personal Injuries Guidelines, there should be less incentive for either side to reject PIAB settlements and proceed to more costly litigation.

Reform of the PIAB is key aspect of the Government’s reform agenda, to lower claims costs (including legal charges) which are a key driver of insurance premiums.  This is included in the Action Plan for Insurance Reform. Responsibility for reforming the PIAB falls under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment which will shortly carry out a public consultation on proposals to enhance the PIAB.