Before COVID-19 upended our lives, the liability insurance crisis in Ireland was the subject of a lot of concerns

• Insurance for many businesses being increasingly unaffordable – childcare, leisure, cafes etc.
• Motor premiums being extremely high
• Insurers withdrawing from the market.

With an imminent vaccine, there’s light at the end of the tunnel that we can return to a more normal life. However, just as we had to rethink many things when struck by the pandemic, should we rethink our approach to insurance? In particular, should we think outside the box and look for possible solutions elsewhere? To the other side of the globe: New Zealand and Australia?
Both New Zealand and Australia take a more nationalised approach to accident compensation. New Zealand operates a single state scheme to cover compensation for all accidents in New Zealand, run by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). Everyone is covered, regardless of fault.
Australia’s states have a variety of approaches to motor bodily injury and workers’ compensation, but all have oversight to different degrees by the states.
In this presentation we will look at accident compensation down under and give an overview of how it works. At the end we’ll circle back to Ireland and consider some possible ramifications of a system like that here.