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Premiums down, claims up for liability products

General insurers wrote $2.9 billion of professional indemnity and public and product liability business in 2011, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Professional indemnity gross written premium was $1.26 billion, down 1.3% on the previous year. But the number of policies written rose 5.2% to 445,000.

Public and product liability insurance gross written premium fell 2.3% to $1.66 billion. The number of policies written was down 2.1% to 2.36 million.

Insurers paid out $1.47 billion for professional, public and product liability claims, up 9.3% on 2010.

Non-facility professional indemnity claims grew 22.7% to $726 million, while public liability claims rose only 2.9% to $706 million.

In total 93,509 claims were recorded for professional, public and product liability.

At December 31 professional indemnity claim estimates totalled $1.5 billion, up 4.2%, while public and product liability case estimates were $1.8 billion, up 8.6%.

Lloyd’s Australia wrote $625 million of gross premium for professional, public and product liability cover last year, including about 1850 professional indemnity risks and 1180 public and product liability risks.

Lloyd’s Australia’s total claim payments for the period were $208 million, down 25.6%.