THE weather gets the blame for everything. Now it is being blamed for pushing up the amount of property insurance claims by 50 per cent last year. Bad weather was the culprit, says the Irish Insurance Federation.

The association's members paid out £214.6 million in claims last year, compared to £139.2 million in the previous year. A series of storms and floods during the year was the main reason for the increase. January 1995 was a bad month more than 5,000 weather related claims were submitted to insurance companies.

There was some good news in other sectors of the insurance market. Underwriting losses in the motor sector - the bugbear of the industry - "improved" from £56.6 million to £40.02 million.

Overall, insurance companies took in £1.28 billion in premiums from property, motor, liability and other types of non life insurance. Claims amounted to £1.04 billion. Overall, the industry lost £47 million on underwriting, when expenses and claims are deducted. Wonder if you can get insurance against those kind of losses.