A new survey has found that the cost of liability insurance renewals has risen by 16% in the 12 months since new judicial guidelines on personal injuries have been implemented.
However, the research conducted by the Alliance for Insurance Reform found private motor premiums have decreased by 9% in the same period.
On April 24 last year, long awaited changes to the guidelines used by the judiciary to decide the quantum of awards for personal injuries came into effect.
The new guidelines revised downwards many of the figures, leading to some hope that it would feed through to reduced costs of insurance and by extension lower premiums.
However, a survey of nearly 1,000 organisations that are members of the Alliance for Insurance Reform found that high insurance costs remain a problem.
42% said insurance costs are threatening their future, while 32% claimed they are inhibiting their ability to grow.
31% said it was preventing their ability to provide the services that they want to.
29% of respondents also claimed that since 2019 their insurer has increased excesses to their policy and added new exclusions, something the alliance claims represents cost increases by stealth.
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Overall, the view of the Government's response to high insurance costs is resoundingly negative, with 90% of respondents saying they do not think enough it being done.
Recently, the Personal Injuries Assessment Board said that average awards last year had fallen by 42% since the new guidelines came into effect.
In 2020, insurers enjoyed their highest level of profitability since at least 2009, according to the Central Bank.
Peter Boland, director of the Alliance for Insurance Reform, said that while they are having an impact on motor premiums the reduction in personal injury awards is clearly not having an impact on the liability premiums.
"Insurers are simply not passing on the benefits of recent reforms to liability insurance policyholders," he said.
"Equally, other reforms that would impact on liability premiums are not happening fast enough," he added.
The Alliance has called for a more rapid rebalancing of the duty of care obligations for businesses which its claims place an unfair, absolute responsibility on occupiers while exempting claimants of any responsibility for their own safety.
It has also criticised the speed at which the reform of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board is taking place.
The Alliance also said that a Government office to encourage greater competition in the insurance market was established in December of 2020 but has still not announced any additional market entries.
The Alliance for Insurance Reform has around 42 representative groups among its membership, who collectively represent around 55,000 business, voluntary, sporting, cultural, community groups and charities who employ 700,000 people.
In a statement, Insurance Ireland said liability insurance has been and remains a challenging area because of the volatility and unpredictability of the personal injuries claims environment.
"Insurance Ireland strongly supports the implementation and application of the new Personal Injuries Guidelines, which came into force on 24th April 2021," it said.
"The reduction of the level of awards and their volatility can reduce risk and uncertainty in the Irish EL/PL market, if the Guidelines are applied consistently."
"The significantly lower acceptance levels of the awards by claimants are concerning and the worry with the lower acceptancy rate is that more cases will go to litigation."
It added that its important that related measures in the Government's Action Plan for Insurance Reform are implemented as quickly as possible.
These include rebalancing the duty of care and strengthening protections in the Occupiers’ Liability Act.
Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Sean Fleming, said there had been remarkable progress in insurance reform since the Government came into office.
"People have seen improvements," he said.
"We have legislation coming through the Oireachtas on Miscellaneous Insurance Provisions Bill in the next couple of weeks. The duty of care legislation will come through."
"But I believe that over a two year period or so we will have everything put in place to make the insurance market in Ireland a very fair place for people to insure businesses and cars and houses."
He added that it will take test cases in relation to the personal injuries guidelines to work their way through the courts before full effects of those changes will be felt.
