Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has criticised the\ninsurance industry for ripping off customers, especially loyal customers\nrenewing their cover, and said Sinn F\u00e9in are determined to end the scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCustomers and businesses across Ireland are being charged rip-off prices by the insurance industry day in, day out. Premiums and quotes are going up and such increases are not based on behaviour or outstanding claims.<\/p>
\u201cThere is no better example of this than the industry\u2019s practice of price discrimination that punishes loyal customers when they renew their annual premium.\u00a0Loyal customers, who have been with their companies for years, are\u00a0being quoted sky-high premiums on their renewals. They receive no goodwill for their loyalty.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cThe outrageous thing is that many of these renewal quotations are often a swindle.\u00a0The practice, of punishing loyal customers when they renew their policy, is called dual pricing. It is a systematic scam costing costumers hundreds of euros every year without their knowledge.<\/p>
\u201cThese companies exploit vulnerable customers who do not know about dual pricing, relying on their loyalty to charge extortionate prices and push up their own profit margins.\u00a0The attitude of the insurance provider is often, \u2018if you don\u2019t like it, you can lump it.\u2019 This\u00a0arrogance is a result of the lack of alternatives for customers\u00a0in the market. Consumers have very few options and the insurance companies know it.<\/p>
\u201cRepresentatives for the insurance industry have alluded to insurance fraud and claims as the reasons for extortionate premiums. This is simply\u00a0not true.<\/p>
\u201cDespite less claims and lower pay-outs, insurance premiums have skyrocketed with the industry registering profits of \u20ac227 million in 2017, a 1,300% increase in profits from the year before.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cThe industry claims that 20% of all claims are fraudulent, yet recent information from the Department of Justice shows that only 50 cases of insurance fraud were recorded by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na in the 6 months from November to June of this year.<\/p>
\u201cIn short, the reasons given by the insurance industry for their extortionate premiums are a sham. It\u2019s greed, pure and simple.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe scale of the insurance industry\u2019s daylight robbery is only matched by the scale of this Government\u2019s failure to tackle rising costs and industry malpractice.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in want to do what this government refuses to do and address the rising cost and the fraud that would appear to be rampant.<\/p>
\u201cOne solution to this issue is to introduce legislation that will deliver transparency, accountability, and real regulations.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cMy party colleague, Pearse Doherty TD, wrote to both the Central Bank and Competition and Consumer Protection Commission asking for an investigation into companies discriminating against loyal customers by offering inflated prices whenever their policies are renewed.<\/p>
\u201cFurthermore, I want to welcome the decision by the Oireachtas Finance Committee to undertake its own investigation into the issue following\u00a0his request.<\/p>
\u201cWe in Sinn Fein are determined\u00a0to end this insurance rip-off.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has criticised the insurance industry for ripping off customers, especially loyal customers renewing their cover, and said Sinn F\u00e9in are determined to end the scandal. Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cCustomers and businesses across Ireland are being charged rip-off prices by the insurance industry day in, day out. Premiums and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3945,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions\/3945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}