It now costs €100 more to insure a typical car than three years ago.
The average cost of cover was €655 in the first half of last year, according to data from the Central Bank. This is up 4pc when compared with the first half of 2024.
The cost of cover has been climbing steadily since the second half of 2022.
Back then the average premium was €552. This means the cost of insuring a car has risen by 19pc in less than three years.
The cost of the average premium is now at a level last seen before the Covid pandemic struck in 2019, the Central Bank’s National Claims Information Database for the first half of 2025 shows.
The industry has benefited from a strengthening of the Injuries Resolution Board, changes to duty of care legislation, lower judicial guidelines on award pay-outs and the creation of a Garda fraud unit.
Figures for the first half of last year show that the cost of settling claims was €374m, up 2pc compared with the second half of 2024.
But the cost of settling claims is up 25pc when compared with the pre-Covid period between 2015 and 2019.
Since 2023, damage claims have overtaken injury claims as the largest component of claims costs.
This is despite a 4pc fall in claims costs in the first half of last year, and a 24pc fall in claims costs since the pandemic.
Damage to cars is proving costly for insurers, despite the overall number of damage claims being down.
Motor experts said new cars, particularly EVs, can be expensive to repair when damaged.
The Central Bank figures show that claimants who use a lawyer and those who go through the Injuries Resolution Bank, which generally does not pay legal costs, get roughly the same level of compensation for claims of less than €100,000.
The average compensation for litigated injury claims in the first half of last year was €19,400.
Average compensation paid out by the State’s Injuries Board was €18,000.
Legal costs closely match the average award amount at €18,400 for litigated claims.
It also takes much longer to settle a claim that is litigated compared with a claim processed through the Injuries Board.
Minister of State at the Department of Finance Robert Troy welcomed the fact that 85pc of all personal injury claims were now being resolved under the Personal Injuries Guidelines
Brian Hanely, of the Alliance for Insurance Reform, said rising repair bills were a major factor in the increase in premiums.
But they are not the whole explanation for what motorists are now paying.
“Lower injury costs, wider reforms and stronger premium volumes are part of this picture too. Repair-cost inflation is real, but it must not become a blank cheque for insurers,” he said.
Insurance Ireland said that, despite the rise in premiums last year, overall levels remained below those seen prior to recent reforms.
It insisted that insurance reforms were working where claims stay out of court. It said that the Central Bank data showed litigation was the slowest and costliest route to resolve injury claims.
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