A Waterford Insurance broker says he's not surprised by the amount of uninsured motor claims last year.
56 claims were made relating to uninsured or untraced drivers in Waterford in 2017, according to new figures released by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI).
That's an increase of 33% on 2016. The claim figures were also higher than the 2015 levels, when a total of 50 Waterford claims were recorded.
Oliver Murphy is from Oliver Murphy Insurance Brokers. He told WLR News that the MIBI would estimate that there are in the region of 150,000 uninsured vehicles in the country, when you put that on a per county basis [the firgure of 56] doesn't surprise me."
Oliver Murphy added that it costs around 60 million euro per year to run the MIBI, he said that works out at around €35 per policy.
Nationally the MIBI outlined the raised number of claims received throughout the country during 2016 was sustained in 2017. In total 2,758 claims were made throughout the Republic of Ireland in 2017, which represents a jump of 242 more claims than in 2015. On a countrywide basis there was a marginal 2% decrease in received claims between 2017 and 2016, when a total of 2,802 claims were submitted.
The MIBI is a not for profit organisation which was established to compensate victims of road traffic accidents caused by uninsured and unidentified vehicles.
Speaking about the figures, David Fitzgerald, Chief Executive of the MIBI said, "Last year the MIBI saw an increase in the number of claims received from Waterford. This increase in claims is in line with the overall picture we have been seeing around the country over the past couple of years. Since 2016 the MIBI has witnessed a significant step up in the number of claims we receive. There has been a marked increase from the previous level of claims which would have been in the region of 2,400 to 2,500 per year on a national basis.
"There are a range of factors behind this step up in activity, including the number of uninsured drivers operating on Irish roads. As the MIBI outlined in late 2016, at that time there were over 151,000 uninsured private vehicles in the Republic of Ireland. We are continuing to work with the Gardaí, the State and the rest of the motor insurance industry to bring forward measures that will help combat this problem.
"The MIBI has also outlined our determination to tackle fraudulent claims around the country, including in Waterford. We estimate 1 in 8 of all claims we receive are suspicious. As we detailed in our Fighting Fraud strategy we are now making it much more difficult for claims of this type to succeed and we believe this more aggressive approach will lead to the decline in bogus claims over time, reducing the overall number of claims received in future," Mr. Fitzgerald concluded.
