New statistics from the Injuries Board Ireland show women accounted for 72 per cent of the 1,443 personal liability awards in 2009 that were settled for the amount recommended by the Injuries Board Ireland.
However, when presenting the compensation award statistics, there is no explanation whatsoever regarding the cases that were not settled through the Injuries Board Ireland process but went to the High Court, where the awards can be significantly higher or were settled by negotiation with an insurance company.
The true statistics do not in fact exist, since the vast majority of injury compensation claims that go to court are settled privately. Presenting a subset of the overall statistics without qualifying explanations is somewhat misleading.
The data only covers awards that were proposed by the Injuries Board Ireland and then accepted by both parties – and therefore does not include certain categories of injury compensation (cases where the defendant does not admit full liability, medical negligence claims, complicated cases – perhaps involving contributory negligence, defamation cases, phycological injuries like PTSD, etc).
What the published statistics do not reveal the reasons why women represent such as high percentage of the settlements made by the Injuries Board Ireland.
Are women more likely to accept the Injuries Board Ireland recommendation whereas men are more likely to want a higher compensation amount? It seems highly likely that this is in fact the case.
It should be remembered that the statistics only represent a small subset of the injury compensation claims in Ireland because they are only award recommendations by the Injuries Board Ireland that have been accepted by both parties.
The category of personal injury known as “slips, trips, and falls” accounted for two thirds of all public liability awards. But perhaps this seemingly very high percentage is because they are precisely the type of small, straightforward personal injury claim that the Injuries Board Ireland is able to handle efficiently. The comparatively fast processing times for these types of simple claim is one of key benefits of the Injuries Board Ireland.
Just over half of the incidents occurred in privately owned buildings such as pubs or cinemas and just under a quarter of the awards were made against public authorities. However, the statistics might perhaps simply mean that public authorities are just more likely to accept the recommendations of the Injuries Board Ireland, whereas private building owners are more likely to defend compensation claims. The only way of determining the true percentage of claims against public authorities is additional statistical information.
The Injuries Board Ireland statistics show that 57 per cent of compensation claims were for amounts of less than €20,000. However, this is certainly a self-serving statistic aimed at reducing the injury award expectations of the general public. In fact, the Injuries Board Ireland seems keen to promote its role in reducing the costs of injury compensation claims, stating that it is “delivering €100m in savings each year”. If the figure is great, it is great news for insurance companies and also beneficial to the general public, but comes at the cost of victims receiving lower amounts of compensation.