Over 70 per cent of injury claims under employers’ liability and public liability insurance were settled through litigation in 2024, even as award levels proved – on average – to be no higher than cases resolved through the State’s Injuries Resolution Board (IRB), according to Central Bank data.
Some 3 per cent of cases were settled as a result of a court award last year, which was broadly consistent with the five previous years, according to figures published on Tuesday from the bank’s National Claims Information Database (NCID).
However, the percentage of litigated claims settled before a court order rose to 68 per cent from 59 per cent over the same period, the data show.
Some 11 per cent of injury claims were settled directly with insurers, 12 per cent were resolved through the IRB, and 6 per cent concluded following an assessment by the board, but before parties resorted to litigation.
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However, the figures show that the average injured party stands to receive little or no extra compensation from going down the litigation route, compared with settling directly or through the IRB process.
More than 90 per cent of all employers and public liability cases settled for less than €150,000 last year, consistent with a long-term trend. The average compensation from a directly settled award was €19,295, rising to €25,484 for an IRB award and €25,934 for a litigated one.
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However, legal fees for cases resolved through litigation averaged €25,055 – almost matching the compensation – while those attached to IRB cases averaged only €694.
“We now have a system where two people with similar injuries can get similar compensation, but one case costs a few hundred euro through the Injuries Resolution Board while the other costs tens of thousands in legal fees,” said Tracy Sheridan, a board member of the Alliance for Insurance Reform and owner of Kidspace play centres in Rathfarnham and Rathcoole in Dublin.
“Every unnecessary euro spent on litigation is a euro [ultimately] taken from wages, community services and local investment. Whilst steps have been taken to increase the volume of cases settling at the Injuries Board in recent years, it is clear much more needs to be done.”
While judicial guidelines introduced in April 2021 for personal injury cases have set much lower benchmarks for awards than the previous reference point, the so-called book of quantum, the fact that it takes years for litigated claims to be settled meant that the guidelines were only used for a minority of such cases.
Only 37 per cent of the litigated claims in the second half of last year were settled under awards guidelines introduced by the State’s judiciary in 2021. Still, the ratio was up sharply from 17 per cent recorded for the same period in 2023.
Businesses in Ireland typically take out employers and public liability as well as commercial property insurance in a combined policy.
Insurers active in the Irish market made an average 10 per cent total operating profit return on premiums for the three combined lines in 2024. While that was down from 14 per cent recorded for each of the two previous years, it marked a fourth straight year of profitability, following a decade of consecutive annual losses.
