Drivers from Co Louth need not apply. That's the message from AXA/PMPA to new customers seeking a motor insurance quotation.
The insurer's experience in Co Louth has been disastrous, according to an AXA/PMPA spokesman.
"It's not 100 per cent true to say you can't get a quote if you are from Co Louth but we're not seeking new business there . . . if somebody rings up seeking a quotation they may not be offered one or it may be high."
In a letter to Mr Noel Treacy, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the chief executive of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, Mr Dermott Jewell, said: "That an insurance provider in our already shrinking supplier market should adopt these tactics is an alarming indication of how this market is being undermined and moulded into one of the most extreme and expensive for consumers."
Choice was being eliminated in a regime that compulsorily demanded insurance, said Mr Jewell. He had been advised that while new customers were not being offered quotations, existing customers in Co Louth faced large increases when they went to renew their policies but were not being advised of the reason.
"It is not an acceptable market framework that forces any consumer to pay what is demanded to a shrinking number of providers who are calculatedly controlling that market within boundaries that suit only them," he said.
Other insurance providers - Eagle Star, Quinn Direct, Royal and Sun Alliance, Hibernian, One Direct and the AA - contacted by The Irish Times will offer potential customers from Co Louth a quotation. However, Mr Conor Faughnan of the AA, which acts as an insurance intermediary, said insurance underwriters did place "a loading" on Co Louth drivers.
"It's a Border county and it straddles two of the fastest and busiest roads in the country, the N1 and the N2," he said. Accidents were frequent and tended to be at high speed.
There were 450 road deaths last year, with 57 of these in the Louth/Meath area, according to a Garda spokeswoman. Drogheda man Mr Neil O'Brien (37), who was refused insurance from AXA/PMPA, has called on AXA policy-holders in Co Louth not to renew their policies.