Average Personal Injuries Assessment Board payout down €10k

Peter Boland, director of the Alliance for Insurance Reform, said premiums for community groups, and charities continue to spiral, with many finding it difficult to get cover.

The average value of each insurance claim payout awarded by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board dropped by over €10,000 in the first eight months after new guidelines came into force.

In general damages cases, the award from PIAB dropped by almost half under the new guidelines from €21,850 in 2020 to €11,411 in November 2021.

In a report published by the Department of Justice, it also said there was a fall in the rate of claimants accepting the award from PIAB with only just over a third (37%) accepting the payouts.

“It is possible that claimants are awaiting the resolution of legal challenges to the [new] guidelines or the outcoming of similar cases in the courts before committing to accepting PIAB assessments,” it said.

The report also noted that Insurance Ireland has said its members are reporting higher numbers of claimants declining both direct or PIAB settlements and progressing through litigation than there would have been prior to the implementation of the new guidelines.

The report said, however, that the amount of data available on the impact of the new personal injury guidelines is “limited, and indeed in most areas is completely absent”.

As part of efforts from the Government to bring down the high cost of insurance in Ireland, it has pledged a series of measures aimed at tackling the problem.

One of them came into effect in April 2021, when the guidelines in the Book of Quantum were replaced by new guidelines to determine the award in personal injury cases.

From April to the end of November, PIAB applied the new guidelines in 4,135 cases.

In motor insurance cases, the average PIAB award dropped from €22,158 to €12,592. In public liability cases, the average award dropped from €26,000 to €14,776 while it fell from €30,576 to €17,441 in employer liability cases.

The average drop across all claims was 43%.

According to Insurance Ireland, its members have reported that where a settlement is agreed and finalised with the claimant, the reduction in awards is generally in line with the reductions in PIAB awards of around 40%.

However, the report noted this comes from “a very small sample and without providing statistical data”.

This report was included as an appendix to a wider Government report on progress in insurance reform.

In the progress update, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar said the Government’s focus this year will be on legislative reforms, including occupier’s liability, competition enforcement, and PIAB.

“We will continue to monitor costs to make sure the changes we are making are reflected in premium reductions,” he said.

The Alliance for Insurance Reform, however, said clear timelines are needed for when further progress will be made in key areas.

Its director Peter Boland said insurance premiums for SMEs, voluntary and community groups, sports and cultural organisations, and charities continue to spiral, with many organisations now struggling to get cover at all.

He expressed concern that key outstanding reforms including reforming PIAB and resolving the national claims database, all of which are well behind schedule, do not have revised, specific timelines attached to them.