Uninsured drivers 'putting hands in pockets' of law-abiding motorists as claims surge

Mayo saw the biggest rise, with claims up 80%, while they rose by 19% in Cork to 141 such incidents in all. Cork had the second-highest number of such incidents, with Dublin the highest on 822.

MIBI was established to compensate victims of road crashes caused by uninsured and unidentified vehicles. It said the average motorist will have contributed around €30-€35 in their insurance premium to cover the claims paid out in the last year.

Its CEO David Fitzgerald said the figures should be a cause of concern to every law-abiding motorist in the country, as it cost them millions of euro last year.

“It is illegal to drive without valid motor insurance, yet as these figures show, there are still a significant number of people who are willingly flouting the law,” he said. 

With the level of claims growing, it reaffirms the importance of the new law-enforcement system to clamp down on uninsured driving.

Since signing an agreement last November, MIBI now provides the insurance details for 3m vehicles using Irish roads to An Garda Síochána on a daily basis. In practice, it means a Garda can check the insurance status of any vehicle simply by scanning its registration plate.

Mr Fitzgerald said this could be a “gamechanger for law enforcement in dealing with the scourge of uninsured driving”.

We hope that as this new weapon begins to bite, it won’t be long before the number of uninsured claims we receive also begins to fall.

After Mayo, Meath (up 55%) and Kildare (up 42%) saw the highest increases in claims last year. The number of claims grew in 14 counties in all, and fell in nine.

Last year, MIBI said motorists had forked out €175 each in the last five years to cover around 10,000 claims stretching back to 2018. It claimed that there were around 188,000 uninsured vehicles on Irish roads.

The Government has pinned its hopes on the new powers for gardaí having an impact, with Finance Minister Michael McGrath saying in a parliamentary reply that the use of this technology could help lower costs for policyholders in the long run.