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Insurance Costs Remain A Worry In 2019

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A majority of motorists are more worried about meeting their insurance payments in 2019 than they were last year, according to recent research undertaken by AA Ireland. A survey of over 6,000 motorists by AA Car Insurance found that almost half of those surveyed (48.38%) ‘strongly agreed’ that they were more concerned about the cost of car insurance now than they were last year. Meanwhile, over 1 in 5 of those surveyed (22.17%) stated that they ‘somewhat agreed’ that their level of concern had risen.

“While the issue of insurance costs, including both car and business insurance, continues to generate a lot of headlines, it does appear to have fallen further and further down the government’s list of priorities. Brexit is deservedly taking centre stage currently, but we need to see continued government resolve to completing many of the actions from the Cost of Insurance Working Group’s report which are still outstanding,” Conor Faughnan, AA Director of Consumer Affairs stated. “We’ve seen some good progress made in terms of expanding the use of ANPR and providing Gardaí with increased manpower, but there is still a great deal more than needs to be done.”

“In particular, personal injury claims for less severe injuries, such as whiplash, remain out of line with many of the other countries in Western Europe. Until we have greater clarity surrounding court awards and improve the ability of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board to resolve such claims, we won’t be able to say that the insurance battle has been won.”

Despite the increased concern surrounding motor insurance costs, the AA Ireland survey found that over a quarter of motorists could be missing out on the chance to save by not shopping around at renewal time. Of those surveyed by the AA, 11.19% ‘strongly agreed’ that they had shopped around less this year when renewing their car insurance than they had in previous years. Meanwhile, a further 15.23% ‘somewhat agreed’ that this had been the case.

“Throughout 2015 and 2016, with many motorists seeing significant increases in their cover costs at the time of renewal, we all became very adept at doing additional research to ensure we received the best price for our cover,” Faughnan added. It does look, however, that as the year-on-year increases have eased or turned to decreases in some cases, some of us are starting to forget about the importance of shopping around and leaving potential savings behind us as a result.”