Motor Insurance Increases Unjustified

The situation whereby motor insurance premiums are set to rise by up to 20% this year and another 20% next year is a totally unacceptable situation and young people, who are trying to get started in life, are going to pay the biggest price. This situation has come about because of gross incompetence once again. We never seem to learn in this country. We let the banks run riot without any regulation and we saw what happened there. The insurance companies say that the premium rises are because they have been told that they do not have enough liquidity. Why was this situation allowed to develop? Why was there no regulation over the years to ensure that the insurance companies were complying with the regulations? The insurance companies say that there is a huge increase in the level of claims in recent years yet they refuse to publish the exact amount of those claims. The facts are that the number of fatalities and accidents on our roads are reducing because of greater road safety awareness in recent years, and that is very welcome, yet we have a situation where these massive increases are being sought by the insurance companies. I am calling on the Minister to investigate this situation immediately and I am calling on the insurance companies to publish the figures on claims in the interest of transparency. Once again it is the ordinary customer who will have to pay through the nose for incompetence at official level.