Professional indemnity (PI) and public and product liability (PL) claims increased 27.7% last year to $2.05 billion, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) National Claims and Policies Database.

APRA-regulated insurers paid non-facility PI claims of $1.03 billion, up 54.6%, and non-facility PL claims of $979 million, an increase of 13.7%.

Claim payments of $39 million were made on facility business, up 5%.

At December 31 insurers reported $3.4 billion as case estimates for further payments to be made on open claims, down 6.9% from the previous year.

About $3.76 billion of gross premium was written for PI and PL last year, down 4.3% on 2013.

This included $1.33 billion for non-facility PI (down 4.5%), which related to 577,000 risks, and $1.8 billion for non-facility PL (down 4.1%), related to about 2.56 million risks.

Insurers wrote $63 million of gross premium for facility business, down 7.9%.

The national average written premium for PI risks was $2303, down from $2511 the previous year, while for PL risks it dropped to $705 from $728.

The database is a comprehensive collection of policy and claim information on PI and PL insurance, containing data on every open, reopened or finalised claim and policy underwritten since 2003 by APRA-regulated general insurers.