New figures on crash settlements could help to cut the cost of car insurance.

The Sunday Business Post reports that Insurance Ireland has handed over data on out of court payments to the Personal Injuries Commission, which is investigating the spiralling cost of premiums.

Here, payouts can be up to 78-thousand euro for serious cases, compared to just over 24-thousand in the UK.

The PIC is to benchmark the figures against other countries to see if our payouts - and therefore our premiums - can be reduced.