The Central Bank's figures: direct, Board or court

Two bodies publish the figures that get quoted about personal injury claims in Ireland. The Board publishes its own awards. The Central Bank publishes what insurers paid, by the route the claim took. This guide is about the second set: what the National Claims Information Database is, what its figures say, and how to read them without turning an average into a forecast.

What the NCID is

The National Claims Information Database (NCID, see the glossary) was set up under the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Act 2018. Insurers must report claims data to the Central Bank, which publishes reports on private motor insurance each year, with a mid-year update, and separate reports on employer liability and public liability insurance. The reports cover premiums, claims costs, settlement channels and the time claims take.

The private motor report is the one most often quoted, because motor injury claims are the largest set and the data goes back furthest. Every figure in this guide is from the private motor reports, and every figure is for injury claims that settled, not for claims that are open.

The Central Bank publishes the reports on its National Claims Information Database page. The mid-year figures quoted below reached this site through press reports of the Central Bank's release, and the register marks them to be confirmed against the report itself; where a figure here and the Central Bank's own table differ, the Central Bank's table is right and the updates page will record the correction.

The three channels

The Central Bank sorts settled injury claims by how they settled:

• Directly: the claimant and the insurer agreed a figure without the Board assessing it. The guide on an insurer's direct offer covers this channel.
• Through the Board: the Injuries Resolution Board assessed the claim and both sides accepted. Chapter 2 of this site, starting with how the Board works, covers it.
• Litigated: court proceedings issued, whether the claim was later settled or decided by a judge. Litigated claims include claims the Board assessed and one side rejected. The guide on rejecting an assessment and going to court covers the move from one to the other.

The costs by channel

For private motor injury claims settled in the first half of 2025, as the Central Bank's figures were reported:

The cost of a settled claim is what the insurer paid in total: the sum to the claimant, which covers general and special damages, plus legal costs and other claim expenses. So the €66,100 litigated figure is not an award of €66,100; it is an award plus €26,752 of legal costs plus expenses. The register on the figures page carries these figures with their source and date and flags that they are to be confirmed against the Central Bank's own report.

The years

For 2024, the Central Bank's seventh private motor report gives the channel mix and the time each took:

The rest settled outside both, and the Central Bank's own report gives the full split. The Board's own figures sit inside the 2.7 years: about 9 months from the respondent's consent to an assessment, about 3 months for mediation, and the 90 days the respondent has before that. The guide on how long a Board claim takes builds the statutory shape and the timeline tool puts dates on it.

How to read them

Five things keep the figures honest.

They are averages. An average across thousands of claims is pulled up by the largest ones. The Board's median award for 2025, €14,020, is well below its average, €20,559, for the same reason; the guide on the Board's figures explains the difference. The Central Bank publishes averages by channel, so the same caution applies.

They are different claims. The three channels do not contain the same claims at different stages. Smaller and clearer injuries tend to settle directly; contested liability, larger injuries and claims where one side rejected the Board's figure tend to litigate. A claim does not move from €14,233 to €22,658 by applying to the Board; the two figures describe two populations.

They are motor only. The private motor report covers claims against motor policies. Employer liability and public liability claims have their own reports with their own figures, and the Board's own medians for those categories for July to December 2025 are €12,850 for motor and €14,118 for public liability, with the employer liability median up 27% year on year.

They are totals, not awards. The litigated figure includes legal costs on both sides as the Central Bank records them. The damages a claimant received are a part of each figure, not the whole of it.

They are yesterday's claims. Claims settled in the first half of 2025 arose, on average, years earlier. The Guidelines took effect for claims not assessed by the Board before 24 April 2021, and the litigated set still includes claims that began under the Book of Quantum. Every bracket is still the 2021 figure; the 16.7% increase approved by the Judicial Council in December 2024 is not in force, and the changes page tracks it.

What they are good for

Read with those cautions, the figures answer three real questions.

They show that the Board channel is cheaper and faster than litigation across the whole set, which is the policy reason the 2003 Act requires nearly every claim to go through the Board first, and the reason section 51A of the 2003 Act puts a costs risk on rejecting an assessment that the respondent accepted.

They show the scale of legal costs in litigation: €26,752 on the average litigated motor claim. The guide on what a case costs and who pays puts that beside the rules on who pays.

And they show the time. A litigated claim at 4.7 or 5 years against a Board claim at 2.7 is a difference measured in years of a person's life, which no figure for the award itself captures.

What they do not do is value anyone's claim. For that the only published yardstick is the Guidelines' bracket for an injury described like this, which the injury checker shows, with special damages vouched and added.

Where this leaves you

The Central Bank's figures describe what motor injury claims cost and how long they took, by the route they settled through: €14,233 direct, €22,658 through the Board, €66,100 litigated with €26,752 in legal costs, over 2.7 years through the Board and 5 years in litigation in 2024. They are population averages, published on dates, and read best beside the Board's own medians. The figures page keeps both sets with their sources and the date each was checked.