The insurance provider has called on the government to take action against what they see as a potential crisis.
The vast majority of Irish motorists are still seeing their insurance costs rise, AA Ireland has warned.
Despite recent research conducted by the Central Statistics Office, which indicated that the cost of motor insurance has dropped by 12.8% in the past 12 months, motorists are still seeing a rise on the rate of their premiums.
In a new study carried out by AA Ireland, over half of the 4,000 respondents (54.06%) strongly agreed that their insurance costs had risen since their last renewal.
Furthermore, 23.35% were somewhat in agreement with the same claim.
AA also noticed that there appears to have been a decline in the number of people shopping around to save on their car insurance costs. This is an issue that the insurance provider describes as being a sign of the fact that Irish motorists have been forced to grow accustomed to higher premiums.
When asked if they had shopped around less over the past 12 months by comparison to previous years, only one in 10 motorists (9.67%) strongly agreed.
17.08% were somewhat in agreement with the claim that they had made less of an effort to compare premiums at the time of their last renewal.
Commenting on the survey, AA Director of Consumer Affairs, Conor Faughnan said: “While we have seen a few headlines recently indicating that insurance costs are dropping, it’s important to bear in mind that this is based off an aggregate of all available data.
“As a result, there are many motorists out there that have set to see their premiums start to dip. Even worse, our research indicates that the poor response to this crisis from [the] government has resulted in the majority of motorists still seeing the cost of their cover increase or, at best, stay at a level much higher than they would have paid in previous years.
“The issue of rising premiums first presented itself in 2015 and a number of bodies, AA Ireland included, have been campaigning for government action to resolve the crisis since then. Unfortunately, all we’ve seen from Leinster House is the publishing of a strong set of recommendations but no follow through on actually enacting any changes.
“Many people are still seeing increases in their insurance prices,” Faughnan continued, “but the percentage increase for most is going to be significantly less than they saw in 2015 or 2016. As a result of this people may fall into the trap of thinking they’re getting a good deal and fail to compare providers which could leave them paying significantly more than they need to for cover.
“Even if you are one of the fortunate people who has seen their premiums drop compared to last year, it can still be worth putting some time into shopping around as, even when the drop in costs the CSO is reporting is accounted for, the average motorist is still paying 20-25% more for insurance than they would have in 2015.”
