The Injuries Board says there's been a 'cultural revolution' when it comes to injury claims.
In a mid year review, the body's CEO Patricia Byron says only 2 per cent of personal injury claims ever go to court, and almost all insurers aim to get an early resolution.
The review also shows an increase of more than a fifth in the total compensation handed out to claimants in the first half of the year.
The jump to 144 million euro is largely being put down to a time lag between a spike in claims in recent years, and the resolution of those claims.
CEO, Patricia Byron said: “We’ve seen a decade of solid progress whereby 70% of PI claims are no longer litigated and only 2% of PI claims ever go to court. There has also been a cultural revolution, of sorts, with almost all insurers targeting early resolution of PI claims through their own offices and / or using the services of the Injuries Board."
She said "claims are resolved four times faster and at a fraction of the processing cost, to deliver over €1billion in savings and cacilitating a 40% reduction in motor insurance premiums. Despite this progress, there are tell-tale signs of unresolved issues, one of which is the absence of data on unsupervised settlements”.
Analysis by the Injuries Board which looked at data from a range of sources (Injuries Board, Central Bank and Insurance Ireland) hilighted the following issues:
- Up to 15,000 cases reported to insurance companies each year never materialise but are provided for in insurance company reserves before being written down to nil.
- Of the estimated 45,000 claims that do materialise each year, 40% (18,000) are settled upfront directly between claimants and insurers without recourse to the Injuries Board or Courts. Whereas early settlements are generally good for society, the absence of data means these cases are unsupervised which may result in: a) unfair compensation, b) undue haste to settle cases and c) disproportionate legal fees as legal fees are generally not applicable or recoverable through the Injuries Board process.
- Of the 27,000 remaining claims, approximately:
- 1/3 are settled before an award is made
- 1/3 have awards assessed by the Board
- 1/3 are either defended by respondents / insurance companies or are released as not appropriate
- Less than 2% of claims progress to Court, indicating that even where Board awards are not accepted the awards provide a solid basis for the settlements that occur thereafter.
Key statistics for the six months from January to June 2014 are as follows:
- The average award was €22,082, compared to the average award for the same period in 2013 of €22,349.
- Road traffic accidents continued to account for the majority of personal injury claims and represented over three quarters (75.6%) of awards. 17.2% of awards were for accidents in public places, 7.2% related to workplace accidents.
- Administrative costs to process awards has fallen to 6.7% compared to an average of 58% for cases dealt with through litigation.
- Awards were processed in an average time of 7 months in the period.
- Savings of €42.88m to the end of June 2014 were achieved
- Applications to the Injuries Board decreased year on year by 1% to 15,987.
- Longford, Limerick, Louth, Dublin and Clare are the five counties with the largest number of awards as a proportion of population.
- The five counties with the lowest number of awards per head of population are Kilkenny, Wicklow, Wexford, Carlow and Mayo.
