Professional indemnity (PI) claim payments amounted to $1.109 billion in the 2019 underwriting year, up 11.8% from the previous year, according to latest data from the prudential regulator.

Public and product liability claim payouts increased 13% to $1.054 billion, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) says in its National Claims and Policies Database (NCPD) update.

The payout figures relate to non-facility business underwritten by APRA-regulated general insurers.

PI gross premium for non-facility business in the 2019 underwriting year grew 13.5% to $2.23 billion from a year earlier, while public and product liability gross premium surged 12% to nearly $2.71 billion.

The number of PI risks in the 2019 underwriting year increased 0.4% to 875,585 but public and product liability risks declined 12.3% to nearly 3.12 million.

APRA says gross premium for facility business in the 2019 underwriting year rose to $190 million from $103 million a year earlier.

It says Lloyd’s Australia recorded PI gross premium of $382 million in the 2019 underwriting year, public and product liability gross premium of $111 million and gross premium of $648 million for facility business.

The regulator did not provide figures for the 2018 underwriting year.

APRA says it is difficult to compare Lloyd’s with other regulated insurers as the specialist nature of Lloyd’s means that along with standard business, it also writes larger and more complex risks which attract higher premiums.

For the 2019 underwriting year, Lloyd’s total claims payments for PI and public and product liability declined 0.2% to $559 million.

Click here for the APRA report.