The Government has today published the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Bill.
The new bill is seen as a milestone in the implementation of one of the key recommendations of the Cost of Insurance Working Group's Report on the cost of motor insurance.
The bill comes from one of the recommendations of the first report of the Cost of Insurance Working Group, which urged the setting up a National Claims Information Database.
This would facilitate a more in-depth analysis of motor insurance claims trends, which is key to understanding how claims costs are impacting premiums.
A data subgroup, chaired by the Department of Finance, was set up to oversee the development of the Database and the underpinning legislation.
Its members includes representatives from the Central Bank, the State Claims Agency, Personal Injury Assessment Board (PIAB), the Central Statistics Office and the Society of Actuaries.
In a statement, the Minister for Financial Services and Insurance Michael D’Arcy said the Bill represented "18 months of complex work" which has involved numerous meetings of the data subgroup, as well as consultations with industry and stakeholders.
"It is essential that there is an improvement in transparency around what has caused motor insurance premiums to be so volatile both up and down over relatively short periods of time," the Minister said.
He said he believes that the identification of settlement channel information should lead to a greater consistency in award levels and a greater use of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.
"This in turn should lead to a more stable claims environment, which should have positive impacts for the price of insurance paid by consumers," he added.
The Alliance for Insurance Reform has welcomed the publication by the Government of the bill today, saying it addresses the critical issue of transparency in the insurance industry.
But it added that it rejected - in the strongest possible terms - the proposal that the study and publication of the data be the responsibility of the Central Bank.
"The Central Bank have a responsibility to ensure the good health of insurance companies and this conflicts directly with their consumer protection responsibilities," Eoin McCambridge of the Alliance said.
He said the alliance was proposing that the study and publication of the data be handed to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.
Mr McCambridge also noted that the Central Bank had published company-by-company data on the industry up to the end of 2015 in the form of the Blue Book.
He said while this was a very useful way for policyholders to monitor what was going on in the industry, the Central Bank shelved it.
"While EU data provisions have changed in the meantime, it is well within the Central Bank's capability to reinstate the Blue Book in a slightly different format," he said.
"Given that there has not been any data oversight of the industry for three years now and that the new National Claims Information Database will not be providing comparable data until 2021, we are facing into six years of no monitoring of insurers if nothing is done now," he cautioned.
