Minister Martin Briefs UK Insurance Sector on PIAB Success

2^nd November 2006

“The work of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board in Ireland has made a very positive contribution to the success of the Irish Government’s insurance reform programme” Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin T.D. said today (Thursday 2 November 2006) at a briefing of representatives of the London insurance market.

The PIAB was established in April 2004 as part of the Government’s insurance reform programme, with the aim of allowing certain classes of personal injury claim, where liability is uncontested, to be settled without the need for many of the costs associated with litigation.

“PIAB is now assessing claims three times faster and four times cheaper than under the old litigation system. When you compare the cost of the old system, which amounted to 46% of an award, to PIAB costs, which average 7.2% of an award, PIAB has made actual savings to date of €17.5million on awards totaling €45million. This is quite an achievement in such a short space of time, and can only be good news for accident victims, for business and for insurers whose own costs have been reduced as a direct result of PIAB’s work.” the Minister said.

“In addition to the provision of these savings, the PIAB has succeeded in establishing a new non-adversarial culture of settling claims. It has put paid to the long wait for compensation and the adversarial approach to the process that previously led to huge uncertainty and stress for claimants. Within a short number of years the old, unwieldy, inefficient system has been replaced by a speedy, low cost, user-friendly system,” the Minister added.

“The PIAB has pared down the personal injury claims process in a wholly positive way. Personal injury cases going through the Irish Courts system have dropped from over 35,000 cases in 2004 to less than 5,000 in 2005. The effects are felt throughout the Court system where valuable time has now been freed up to deal with cases that should more properly reside there.

“I believe that the legislation establishing the PIAB on a statutory footing (Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003) together with the diverse Board membership, representing the interests of both Claimants and Respondents alike, were key ingredients to its success.” the Minister concluded.