Action Plan for Insurance Reform: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13 ============================================================ Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome the opportunity to speak on insurance. I probably come a close second to my colleague, Senator Nelson Murray. We are always bringing up some kind of insurance issue in this House. It is now six years since the Government first introduced an action plan on insurance reform. This was a move that probably would not have taken place if it was not for my colleague, Teachta Pearse Doherty, back in 2019, which kind of forced the hand of the Government to look at the issue of insurance in this country. We are a year into the second action plan, which leads me to the question of what has been the impact of the first action plan. The truth is the insurance companies have been permitted to operate a licence to print money, aided and abetted by light-touch regulation and a Government looking the other way. A long list of shady practices are utilised by insurance companies in the Irish market. In the finance committee, Aviva admitted to using dual pricing - a practice designed to identify customers that were likely to renew and then to punish them by giving them higher premiums. Deputy Doherty then introduced the Consumer Insurance Contracts Bill to bring that to an end. What did the Government do even when this legislation passed through all Stages in the Oireachtas? It delayed it by two years at the behest of the insurance companies. For years, these companies have peddled lies. They said that fraudulent claims were the reason for skyrocketing insurance costs, yet they have only reported 1% of the claims to An Garda Síochána, despite stating repeatedly that 20% of claims were bogus. During the pandemic, when businesses were on their knees with lockdowns and restricted openings, the first instinct of the insurers was to see how they could avoid paying out business interruption indemnity insurance. Their profits soared as they pocketed the supports intended for those small businesses. This was the backdrop of the Government's first action plan – one it launched while blocking critical aspects of the consumer insurance contracts Bill. More legislation introduced by Sinn Féin – the Judicial Council (Amendment) Bill 2021 – has also been blocked by the Government. This would have forced the insurance companies to report to the Central Bank detailing how they have – or more importantly have not – passed on the savings as a result of the revised personal injury guidelines to consumers. It would have held the insurance companies and the industry to account and applied a downward pressure on prices but it was not supported by the Government. We are here to discuss a second action plan. What has changed for consumers in the meantime? Nothing to their benefit, as insurance companies continue to record grotesque profit margins. This is a fact they have tried to conceal by reporting their after-tax, rather than their pre-tax, profits. Carzone's 2026 motoring report found that more than half of Irish drivers saw their insurance premiums increase last year and that the average cost of motor insurance across the State rose by 9% to €623 in 2024. Successive national claims information database reports highlight the same stark fact: the single largest cost in insurance premiums is the portion retained by the insurers themselves - the industry's price-cost mark-up. We have a 24-page action plan with a long list of things the Government will do, yet nowhere in the document does the Government commit to forcing the insurance companies to pass on to customers the savings they are already making rather than just boosting their own profits. In fact, the document does not mention the profits made by these companies at all. This is a fig leaf designed to cover the Government's embarrassment. It will do nothing to assist small businesses being crippled by rising insurance costs nor those businesses that struggle to get cover at all. The Government states the action plan will control the controllable and tackle the cost of doing business, yet the key drivers to these costs - the cost of insurance, housing and energy - have all been ignored by the Government. That is why people were blocking the roads this April just gone. People have had enough of the transfer of wealth generated through their labour to the coffers of multinationals and big players. It is long past the time the Government worked on behalf of the people of this State and not at the behest of the wealthy and the powerful. I brought up a case I myself had last week where I received a quote for an insurance premium the month before my insurance was due at €420, and because I forgot and stupidly did not take the insurance straight away, I had to try to get a quote the day before my insurance was due and it had risen to €950. It was because they knew I was desperate, they were able to play on that. There is not enough regulation around these insurance companies. They have to be held to account. I was lucky I was with a broker and could go back and take the original quote, but we have spoken in this House about thatched cottages and thatched houses, where the owners cannot even get a quote. They are limited to what they can take. If they cannot get insurance, they are then living in a home that is susceptible to damage and fire and they are taking it in their hands. If they had a fire, God forbid, they would lose everything and nothing to come back on. This country used to be great. You used to be able to have so many different options for insurance, whether it was motor, house, thatched houses or for business. I see the business side of it as well. You do not see inflatables or bouncy castles for kids anymore. No person can get insurance for them. It has taken away the fun for children in that sense. You want to be able to run your business properly. There used to be a time where there were loads of indoor play centres and they would have had inflatables. Even for the indoor play centres now, the prices for them to get insurance are colossal. I looked at it 15 years ago and insurance cost €15,000 or €16,000 for the year. Unless it is a massive industry with a huge profit coming in, that is a lot to pay out for insurance. I would like to see the action plan looked at again or at least worked on and these insurance companies held to account. I am sorry, but they are making profits off what people just cannot afford anymore. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-13