First Employers’ Liability, Public Liability and Commercial Property Insurance Report of the NCID published

• First Employers’ Liability, Public Liability and Commercial Property Insurance Report provides key statistics on employers’ liability, public liability, and commercial property insurance in Ireland.
• Data on the costs and channels associated with settling liability claims and the key income and expenses of insurance undertakings providing business insurance.
• Report will inform and contribute to evidence-based decision making and help to provide greater transparency in the market.

The Central Bank of Ireland has today (14 July 2021) published the first Employers’ Liability, Public Liability and Commercial Property Insurance Report of the National Claims Information Database (NCID).

This report follows the publication of the reports of the NCID on Private Motor Insurance in 2019 and 2020 respectively. The data produced relates to premiums and other income, claims and other expenses, and settlement costs.

The key findings are as follows:

Premiums

Liability insurance spans a broad range of business sectors, each of which covers a variety of risks. It is therefore extremely challenging to provide meaningful data on the overall “average” cost of claims or premiums per policy as it may not reflect the reality of a specific sector or the size of its insured business.

• The overall average premium for package policies (86% of policies) decreased by 16% over the period 2009 to 2013; then increased by 24% from 2013 to 2019; overall average premium increased by 4% between 2009 and 2019.

Profitability

For Employers’ Liability, Public Liability and Commercial Property combined:

• Insurers’ Operating Profit across all years (2009 to 2019) was 5% of total income. This figure is inclusive of investment income. From 2009-2014 there was an 11% Operating Profit; from 2015-2019 there was a 3% Operating Loss.
• Underlying insurance business (i.e., excluding investment income and “other” business) has been less profitable over this time period.
• From 2009-2019, 63% of the total income received has been used to cover claims and expenses related to settling claims.

Settlements

• The complexity or severity of the injury claims settled in the different channels can vary significantly but claims settled through litigation cost more and take longer to settle than Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) or Direct claims on average.
• For all claims, settlements through the litigated channel are significantly higher than settlements through PIAB or Direct.
• When we look at settlements that have similar average compensation costs (in the <€150k total cost band), we can see very different legal costs attaching between PIAB (€1k) and Litigated (€21k) settlements.

Commenting, Mark Cassidy, Director of Economics and Statistics, said: “Today, we are publishing the first Employers’ Liability, Public Liability, and Commercial Property Insurance Report of the NCID. This marks another milestone in the NCID series and is the first time we have looked at this complex area of insurance. This complexity is evident in certain findings captured in the report, particularly calculating an average premium metric that accurately reflects market price movements.

“Today’s report nevertheless provides key information on a number of areas, including costs, claims, and settlement channels. We can see that insurers’ operating profit fluctuated between periods of profit and loss. The data also highlights the considerable legal costs and significant time periods associated with settling injury claims through litigation.

“The Central Bank will continue to publish this data on an annual basis. This will allow us to gradually improve the transparency of premium and settlement information for particular sectors. This will help to bring transparency to the market for the public, and inform the work of the Oireachtas and wider stakeholders in their consideration of these issues.”

Notes

The National Claims Information Database is a repository for aggregate claims data. The purpose of the NCID is to increase transparency around the cost of claims. Aggregate data is collected from insurers, including premium and claims data. This allows the Central Bank to publish an annual report containing analysis of the cost of claims, the cost of premiums, how claims are settled, how settlement costs vary depending on how claims are settled, and an analysis of the various types of cost that make up settlements.

The current classes of insurance that are in scope of the NCID are Private Motor Insurance, Employers’ and Public Liability Insurance and Commercial Property. The first private motor insurance report based on NCID data was published in 2019. The second annual report was published the following year.

The Central Bank began collecting data on EL & PL Insurance and Commercial Property Insurance in Q4 2020. This data will continue to be published on a regular basis.

The Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) is Ireland’s independent state body which assesses personal injury compensation.

The Cost of Insurance Working Group was established in 2016 to examine the factors contributing to the increasing cost of insurance and to identify measures to reduce this cost, taking account of the requirement to maintain a financially stable insurance sector. The focus of the first phase of its work was on the rising costs of motor insurance, which culminated in the publication of the Cost of Motor Insurance Working Group: Report on the Cost of Motor Insurance in January 2017.

Recommendation 11 in this report required the Central Bank of Ireland to establish a National Claims Information Database (NCID), to improve data availability. Legislation was required to confer this new function on the Central Bank, and the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Act 2018 commenced in January 2019. The legislation requires that the Central Bank publishes a report on an annual basis.