FBD chief Muldoon defends insurer as Sinn Féin seeks 'schedule' to cut premiums

FBD chief executive Fiona Muldoon has defended the insurer’s profit levels, saying exceptional circumstances and not price rip-offs had led to it doubling profits to almost €113m last year.

Ms Muldoon was responding to renewed political criticisms about the insurance industry, as Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said he had written to FBD to ask it to set out a schedule to cut the costs of its premiums.

Ms Muldoon — who leaves the insurer after five years at the helm during which she was credited for helping to bring it back from the brink — said the profit level was “as good as it gets” for FBD because of an extraordinary sequence of events in 2019.

“The four buses came along together,” she said, referring to the strength of its underlying book, investment returns, little to no-hit from weather claims, and a release of reserves.

She said 2019 had been extremely favourable because there had been no weather-related claims compared with previous years when Storm Darwin cost the insurer €44m in gross payouts, while Storm Ophelia and Storm Emma cost about €12m each.

Responding to Mr Doherty’s call for a schedule of cuts, she said that publishing a schedule — if the law allowed it — would mean that FBD would disclose much more information than its foreign-owned competitors.

She claimed that British and continental European rivals only disclose opaque information about the money they generate in Ireland, and “none of them disclose the detail that FBD does”.

“For consumers, I think that there has been a modest downward price fall but it is modest, and until our costs come down you can’t lower insurance until the input costs come down,” Ms Muldoon said, referring to the high legal costs faced by SMEs in contesting claims through Irish courts.