Insurers paid almost $1.66 billion in professional indemnity (PI) and public and product liability (PL) claims last year, down 4.8% from 2015, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) National Claims and Policies Database.

Non-facility PI claims fell 9.4% to $766 million and non-facility PL claims increased 0.8% to $869 million.

Claims payments for facility business declined 33.7% to $23 million.

At December 31, insurers reported $3.38 billion in case estimates for non-facility business for further payments on open claims, up 4% from the previous year.

Insurers wrote $3.14 billion gross premium for PI and PL classes of non-facility business last year, down 3.9% from 2015.

Gross written premium for non-facility PI relating to about 701,000 risks fell 4.2% to $1.36 billion.

The amount for non-facility PL relating to almost 2.84 million risks fell 3.7% to $1.78 billion.

The average written premium for PI risks dropped 8.6% to $1942, and PL risks declined 7.9% to $627.

The National Claims and Policies Database contains policy and claim information on PI and PL insurance underwritten by APRA-regulated general insurers.