Forty-eight uninsured claims in the county

THERE WERE 48 claims made in County Wexford last year relating to uninsured or un-traced drivers.

The figure represented a drop of 14 per cent compared to the previous year, however, they were higher than in 2015 when 40 claims were made.

According to the Motor Insurer’s Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) 2,758 claims were made throughout the Republic of Ireland in 2017 which was down by 2 per cent on the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, the largest number of claims came from Dublin which accounted for 41 per cent of all MIBI claims last year. Kilkenny recorded the biggest decrease in claims (-39 per cent).

The MIBI is a not-for-profit organisation that was established to compensate victims of road traffic accidents caused by uninsured and unidentified vehicles.

Its Chief Executive Officer, David Fitzgerald, said the Wexford figures represented a trend that was occurring nationally.

‘Last year the MIBI received a total of 48 claims from Wexford [and] this was a decrease on the 2016 figure but higher than the number of Wexford claims made in 2015,’ he said.

‘Unfortunately, this is in line with what we are seeing at national level,’ he added.

Mr Fitzgerald said there has been ‘a significant step up’ in the number of claims his organisation received since the beginning of 2016.

He said the number of uninsured drivers on Irish roads was a significant factor in influencing the statistics and commented that in 2016 there were 151,000 uninsured vehicles in the country.

‘We are continuing to work with the Gardaí, the State and the rest of the motor insurance industry to bring forward measures that will help combat this problem,’ said Mr Fitzgerald.

He also said fraudulent claims is another issue that needs to be tackled and said around one-in-eight claims received by his organisation are suspicious.

‘As we detailed in our Fighting Fraud strategy we are now making it much more difficult for claims of this type to succeed and we believe this more aggressive approach will lead to a decline in bogus claims over time.’