Kathleen Lynch
Ceist:161 Ms Lynch asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if she will make a statement on the recently published insurance annual report for 2001. [4429/03]
Written Answers. - Insurance Industry.
The insurance annual report – the Blue Book – presents detailed information on the Irish insurance industry in 2001. The information is sourced primarily from the regulatory financial returns which insurance companies are required to provide to the insurance division of my Department. The report also provides more general information both on regulatory developments and significant issues which affected the sector during 2001. I am happy to report that due to my Department's continued policy of stringent and prudential supervision of all insurance companies, we had no insurance failures this year.
During 2001 there was 150 insurance undertakings supervised by my Department. In addition, we were notified of three new branches of insurance companies from other jurisdictions wishing to establish in Ireland and 12 additional companies wishing to write into Ireland on a freedom of services basis from other EU jurisdictions. At the end of 2001 there was 12,168 people employed by insurance companies in Ireland. Total premium income received by Irish insurance companies during 2001 amounted to €18.9 billion.
As the Deputy will be aware, 2001 was a difficult year for the insurance sector worldwide, particularly the non-life sector, with hardening insurance markets, and of course the tragic events of 11 September. The returns submitted by the Irish non-life companies indicated that they had suffered a loss on their underwriting business. However, when the strong investments returns attributable to the underwriting account were factored in, there was an overall profit on the technical account of €278 million. This represented a significant improvement on the prior year returns.
As I announced last year, the current format of the insurance annual report will be revised to make the document more user-friendly for the general consumer. This is in keeping with the recommendation made by the Motor Insurance Advisory Bureau. At present the blue book which is available to the public both from the Government's publication office and from my Department's website, is primarily used as an industry resource.