Wondering Why Your Car Insurance is Increasing?
Car Insurance increasing is a hot topic right now because everyone is feeling it in their pockets. Here are a few reasons why this change has happened.
Firstly, most insurers 
in Ireland were pricing car insurance too low for a number of years so as losses mount, they inevitably have to recoup these losses.
But while lots of journalists like to write their articles from the ‘man on the street’ view in order to ingratiate themselves with their readers, under-pricing is not the reason for the big increases.
Since 2012, the increase in the number of ‘whiplash’ injury claims being made is up massively. As a rule, whiplash is actually quite rare and is almost non-existent in many European countries. Yet in Ireland, every day of the week, in very minor collisions, there are people running off to their solicitor with so called ‘whiplash’. They’re then sent to a doctor, who’ll pocket around €250 for writing a one page report which simply repeats the complaints made by the ‘whiplash’ patient. This so called medical then gives the solicitor what he needs – a doctor agrees in writing that my client is ‘injured’.
So then the solicitor has to process the claim firstly through the Injuries Board. However many of them see this as a stepping stone. They advise their client not to show up for the medical examination arranged by the Injuries Board (another doctor who pockets huge fees for more or less doing the same thing as the claimants’ doctor) which means the Injuries Board can’t make a realistic award. Happy days, it’s now out of their clutches and the solicitor gets to demand a ridiculously large sum of money for someone who is clearly either not injured at all or heavily exaggerating while at the same time charging massive legal fees for very straightforward work.
So why do the insurers pay these large amounts? Because judges hearing these cases appear only too happy to dole out even bigger money once it reaches court. It also costs a fortune to run a case. And even if you win, you lose as the insurer because the cost of running a case you win can’t be recovered from the claimant who will plead they’re skint and can’t pay it. Even when judges do find the claimant to be fraudulent, they don’t believe it’s a criminal matter and simply dismiss the claim and off heads the fraudster to think up another way to make money.
Insurers aren’t white knights by any means but the argument is always made so simple – bloody insurers!
Alan Shatter was determined to increase the jurisdiction of the courts and he was successful so now all awards have gone up and why? Because the judges can simply make bigger awards in their courts now, no other logical reason.
So the Injuries Board was meant to take solicitors out of the equation but failed badly.
Doctors only ever see injured victims
Judges don’t seem to care about fraud and appear happy to give out huge sums of money for no good reason
But, it’s all the insurers’ fault, right? What do you think?