I intend to share time with Deputies Gormley and Fitzgerald.
Adjournment Debate. - Insurance Claims.
Is two minutes each acceptable?
The new rainbow will work on that constraint very effectively.
Is there to be a pot of gold?
No. There is the mismanagement of the insurance industry under the Minister of State's responsibility.
I will tell the Deputy about that shortly.
A community has been devastated by an unforeseen flood. Many of the people involved had insurance but have not had much experience in dealing with insurance companies or loss adjusters. They are of the considered view that they are being badly and oppressively treated by the insurance companies because of the nature of their community. My colleagues and I support that view. Were this a strident and self-confident middle class part of Dublin, the insurance companies would not treat them with such a superior and bullying attitude.
These companies apply for licences from the Minister to provide insurance. They are abusing their positions in the manner in which they are treating this vulnerable and devastated community.
When disaster hits an area the story soon moves off newspaper front pages but the hardship and difficulty remain for the people concerned. That is the case in Ringsend and Irishtown in particular. People have had to leave their homes. Last night more than 200 people met in the latest of a series of meetings. Residents expressed their concern and there was unanimous agreement that they were suffering serious difficulties in the speedy and effective processing of their insurance claims. So great is the concern about this that the four TDs from the constituency issued a joint statement calling on the insurance companies to fastrack the applications. We called on them to look at the overall picture and to see that the area has been devastated. The insurance companies should be conscious of this in their individual responses to each applicant. They should also be conscious that people have had to leave their homes and that their lives have been totally disrupted. They have lost their belongings and their community has been seriously affected by this dreadful flooding.
I ask the Minister of State to call on the insurance ombudsman to examine the overall position in an effort to fastrack the claims.
I ask the Minister to intervene on behalf of the Government seeking a more comprehensive, faster and more effective response from the insurance industry than we have seen to date. It would make a difference to people who could get on with rebuilding their homes and lives.
It is terrible to have to look on and see friends and neighbours affected in this way by floods. As the waters receded, so too did the media interest although the situation is worse now as the area is a building site. Houses are literally gutted and people's lives turned upside down because of the floods. It is an intolerable situation which is made worse by the behaviour of the insurance companies. I am tired of their pettiness and ask them to behave with decency, humanity and not like cowboys. They adopt a superior, dismissive attitude which is unacceptable. There are many individual stories and people cannot understand the ping-pong between the loss assessors and adjusters leaving the ordinary person as piggy-in-the-middle. Some of these are elderly and they suffer great stress. The ball is in the Minister's court and he must take these people to task. We must have regulation of insurers. I know that they also feel under stress and that insurance claims have gone through the roof because of 11 September, but, at the end of the day—
The Deputy's time is up.
I ask the Minister to intervene to ensure that these claims are settled quickly.
With regard to insurance matters, my role relates to the authorisation and prudential supervision of insurance companies with head offices in the State and to the monitoring and evaluation of insurance cost trends and the key contributory factors. Insurance cover is provided by individual insurance companies and I am not in a position to interfere in their underwriting or claims settlement procedures.
Insurance companies have their own procedures in place for investigating, handling and processing claims. From a prudential point of view, it is important that full information on claims made against insurance companies is available to them, so that genuine claimants may receive payment appropriate to the particular circumstances of their case. While I would not have information in relation to claims made arising out of the flooding referred to, it may be that in some cases insurers required further information from claimants before settlement of those claims. Indeed, some cases may have required more detailed investigation.
Notwithstanding the fact that I do not have a role in relation to the processing and settlement of claims by insurance companies, at the request of my Government colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Eoin Ryan, I raised this matter with the Irish Insurance Federation and with representatives of the main insurers today. I asked that the processing of such claims be dealt with as expeditiously as possible by the companies in a fair manner that is consistent with prudential requirements. I was assured that there has been no undue delay in these cases. If there are any individual difficulties and the Deputies refer them to me, I will in turn refer them to the IIF for immediate attention.
I was given guarantees by the chief executives of the main companies, whom I met today, that where loss adjusters, claims adjusters and assessors made recommendations, there was no difficulty in responding to them and that delays were the result of some information being outstanding. I am prepared to take to the IIF every individual case that comes to my attention from Deputies, just as I acted immediately today.