Irish Personal Injury Claims Stabilise

The Irish Injuries Board has published its Annual Review for 2014, which shows that the volume of personal injury claims submitted to the Board during the year have stabilised.

In 2014, the Board received 31,576 new claims, a marginal 1% increase on 2013 claim volumes (31,311) and a slowing down of the 6% increase recorded in the prior year.

The Injuries Board is the independent State body in Ireland responsible for delivering personal injury awards to claimants who have had a motor accident, workplace accident or an accident in a public place. By law, all personal injury claims (apart from medical negligence) must be submitted to the Board.

The average award made by the Board in 2014 was €22,642, a slight decrease on the average award of €22,847 in 2013. The largest award recorded in 2014 was €972,898 and related to an employer liability claim.

As expected, the higher volume of claims received in 2013 fed through to a higher volume of awards in 2014, which were up 16% to 12,420. Due to the higher number of awards made in 2014, the total compensation awarded increased by 15% to €281 million.

The annual review also revealed that:

• Awards for motor accidents accounted for three out of four awards, but the average award value was lower than for any other injury type at €21,215.
• 64% of motor liability awards were for amounts under €20,000.
• In contrast, employer liability awards - while only making up 7.5% of the total number of awards - accounted for the highest average award (€32,134) and also the single highest award made in 2014 (€972,898).
• Public liability awards, for injuries resulting from accidents in public places, made up 17% of total awards in 2014, with an average award of €24,677.

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