Insurance companies are putting rates through the roof.
Sinn Féin Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD has said it is time to get to the root causes of the car insurance hikes that have occurred over the last couple of years. He was speaking as Sinn Féin tabled an amendment to a PMB motion this evening on car insurance.
Deputy Doherty said: “The Sinn Féin amendment, if accepted, will send a strong message to the insurance industry that its excuses are no longer good enough and that it must face up to its responsibility to explain its huge increases, which are sometimes multiples of premiums from one year to the next. I am calling on all TDs and parties to adopt my amendment which adds to the motion already tabled.
“Specifically the Sinn Féin amendment calls for action rather than words.. It also homes in on what the Central Bank, in correspondence with the Department of Finance, has said was “an imprudent pricing and underwriting approach” by insurers which has contributed to the current hikes. Without this focus the motion before us tonight runs the danger of simply playing the game the insurers want to play and lets them off the hook regarding their own role.
“My amendment would call on the Oireachtas Finance Committee to look into the reasons behind the price jumps, put in place a review of the Central Bank and its role in regulating what it itself has identified as imprudent practices, and for the government to publish the Department of Finance’s High Group review and to bring forward actual legislative action.
“This concrete approach is what is needed now. There may be a role for a new advisory board but that is not a long term solution as has been proven.
“As long as the real core issues are skirted around Irish drivers will be always at the whim of the insurers’ ups and downs regardless of how many policy changes are made by the State or its bodies.”
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