Has yours risen too?
Over half of Irish motorists are more concerned with the cost of their car insurance than they were 12 months ago, a new survey has found.
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 (50.71%) strongly agreed that they were more worried about the cost of coverage than they were one year ago. Meanwhile, a further quarter of those surveyed (25.14%) stated that they agreed somewhat that this had become a problem over the past year.
This research follows a previous study, in which AA Ireland found that 54.06% saw a rise in their insurance costs since their last renewal.
Commenting on the results of this research, AA Director of Consumer Affairs, Conor Faughnan said: “The story of high insurance costs isn’t new now, but it is an issue which has fallen off the priority list at Leinster House.
“Ultimately, while the significant annual increases that many people were seeing in 2015 and 2016 have largely eased, the majority of motorists are still paying more for their cover than they would have in previous years and when you combine this with a lack of clear intervention from our politicians it’s unsurprising that people are more concerned about this issue.
Faughnan went on to address how their findings went contrary to those released by the CSO, by saying that despite the reported decrease in insurance costs, “the average motorist was still paying approximately 30% more for cover than they were in 2015.”
“The actions that government need to take to ease the burden have been highlighted routinely and, in fact, many of the recommendations in the Cost of Insurance Working Group’s report reflected the suggestions of the AA and other organisations. Unfortunately, since the report’s publication we haven’t seen enough follow through and it appears that the report is now simply gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in the Department of Finance.”
The AA survey also found that 10.81% of respondents had shopped around less this year while renewing their car insurance than in previous years. A further 16.95% of respondents somewhat agreed that this was the case.
“Throughout 2015 and 2016, with many motorists seeing significant increases in their cover costs at the time of renewal, we all became very adept at doing additional research to ensure we received the best price for our cover,” Faughnan went on to add.
“It does look, however, that as the year-on-year increases have eased or turned to decreases in some cases, some of us are starting to forget about the importance of shopping around and leaving potential savings behind us as a result.”
