A year after the implementation of the judicial guidelines for personal injury awards, 42 per cent of organisations still say insurance premiums are threatening their future.
Last year, the new guidelines were introduced to change the amounts of general damages to be awarded by the courts in personal injury cases in a bid to bring more consistency.
According to a survey carried out by the Alliance for Insurance Reform, liability premiums have continued to increase by 16 per cent while 90 per cent of businesses said the Government is not doing enough to address the issue of insurance costs.
Meanwhile, the survey found that motor insurance renewals decreased by nine per cent.
Businesses also highlighted that the cost of insurance was inhibiting growth, preventing job security and impacting the ability to hire.
The Personal Injuries Assessment Board have said that since the new guidelines came into effect, the value of awards has fallen by 42 per cent.
However, the acceptance rate of these assessments has reduced from 50 per cent to 37 per cent as more claimants move to litigation.
Commenting on the survey findings, Peter Boland, director of the alliance said: “Personal injury damages are by far the biggest component of the cost of insurance and the Judicial Guidelines implemented on 24th April 2021 introduced significant reductions in the level of damages for minor injuries.
“So it is worth reflecting on the impact of those reductions one year on.”
According to Mr Boland, although they are having an impact on motor premiums, they are not having an impact on the liability premiums paid by businesses, voluntary and community groups, sports and cultural organisations and charities.
“Our ongoing research shows liability insurance renewals trending at plus 16 per cent and the research we carried out over the last three weeks shows that 73 per cent of organisations have also had additional excesses or exclusions imposed on their policies since 2019,” Mr Boland said.
“Insurers are simply not passing on the benefits of recent reforms to liability insurance policyholders.
“Equally, other reforms that would impact on liability premiums are not happening fast enough.”
Among a number of measures, the alliance is calling on the Government to act more quickly on the rebalancing of duty of care obligations which, according to the group, often places an unfair, absolute responsibility on occupiers while exempting claimants of any responsibility for their own safety.
