As reported on Newstalk and the Irish Independent, a new 2% levy will be introduced on Irish insurance policies, excluding health and life insurance, but including policies such as home and motor insurance.
The levy is to raise funds to pay for €600 million from the Insurance Compensation Fund, which covers losses by insurance companies. However this fund currently only stands at €40million and losses at Quinn Insurance amount to €700 million. The buyers of Quinn Insurance, Anglo Irish Bank and Liberty Mutual, are unwilling to take on all the losses, therefore €600 million needs to be raised from the Insurance Compensation Fund and this will be done through the 2% levy.
It is predicted the levy will need to be in place for 10 years, based on an insurance market value of around €3 billion (excluding life and health insurance).
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