Publication of the Cost of Insurance Working Group’s Fifth Quarterly Progress Update

The Cost of Insurance Working Group – chaired by the Minister of State for Financial Services and Insurance, Michael D’Arcy TD – has published its Fifth Quarterly Progress Update

This quarterly report is the first to provide details on the implementation of the Report on the Cost of Employer and Public Liability Insurance, which was released last January, as well as continuing to outline developments in respect of the Report on the Cost of Motor Insurance recommendations. Both of the primary Reports and all five quarterly updates are available on the Department of Finance website.

In relation to the Liability Insurance Report, all eight actions scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of the year have been fully completed. While it is appreciated that some of these are stepping stones to the implementation of broader policy initiatives, it is envisaged that further significant progress can be made over the next six months, with the vast majority of the total number of actions (26 out of 29) due for completion before the end of 2018.

Of the four actions in the Motor Report with a Q1 2018 deadline, one has been met in full and it is expected that at least two of the other three will be concluded during the second quarter. The Action Plan Monitoring Dashboard for the Motor Report currently indicates that 40 of the 50 separate deadlines set thus far have been met.

Taking implementation of the action points from the two Reports into consideration, therefore, 48 of 58 separate deadlines overall have been met since January 2017.

Minister of State D’Arcy has stated that while he is looking for the rate of achieving such targets to be further improved upon, he wishes to acknowledge "the continued determination of the members of the Working Group to push for all of the proposed measures to be put in place in their entirety as soon as possible and believes that the pattern of decreasing average motor premiums can be sustained and translate to similar price movements across all classes of insurance."

The Working Group and associated sub-groups have been continuing to meet regularly in order to ensure the focus remains fixed upon the timely implementation of all the recommendations of the Report on the Cost of Motor Insurance and the Report on the Cost of Employer and Public Liability Insurance.

ENDS

The Cost of Insurance Working Group was initially chaired by the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Mr Eoghan Murphy T.D. However, following his appointment as Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, he was replaced as Chair by Minister of State for Financial Services and Insurance, Mr Michael D’Arcy T.D. The Working Group is comprised of representatives from the Department of Finance, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Justice and Equality, the Central Bank of Ireland, the State Claims Agency, and the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.

The Report on the Cost of Motor Insurance was published in January 2017 and made 33 recommendations with 71 associated actions to be carried out in an agreed timeframe. The Report on the Cost of Employer and Public Liability Insurance was published in January 2018 and made 15 recommendations with 29 associated actions to be carried out in an agreed timeframe.

There is a commitment in both Reports that the Working Group will prepare quarterly updates on its progress. The first update was published in May 2017, the second in July 2017, the third in October 2017 and the fourth in January 2018 and all four provided details on how the implementation of the recommendations were progressing, with a particular focus on the action points which were due for completion during the respective quarters – 10 in the first quarter, 17 in the second quarter, five in the third quarter and 14 in the fourth.

This Fifth Progress Update is the first such quarterly report to encompass both the Motor and EL/PL Reports and provides details on how the implementation of the recommendations is progressing, with a particular focus on the 12 actions which were due for completion during Q1 from both Reports. 9 of the 12 actions have been completed. This consists of one action point from the Motor Report and all 8 from the EL/PL Report.

The three action points which have not been achieved on time in Q1 2018 have, it is envisaged, been in effect merely pushed back one quarter. One relates to the extension of the deadline at EU level for transposition of the Insurance Distribution Directive, another is due to the agreed amalgamation of two separate Personal Injuries Commission reports into a single report, while the final delayed action is due to the emergence of issues of a technical and data protection-related nature in the development of a register of personal injuries proceedings.