The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has invited discussion over the future of the central database used to record information on professional indemnity and public and product liability insurance.

The National Claims and Policies Database (NCPD) contains data on every policy underwritten and every open claim since 2003.

APRA created the NCPD in 2005 at the request of the Federal Government. The database is designed to provide insurers, the community and the government with a better understanding of those insurance lines and to ensure cover is affordable and available.

Insurers use the information to help assess risk and to determine appropriate premium, and APRA aims to produce more sophisticated reports on policy data.

The regulator says it seeks a balance “between the industry’s requirements of protecting confidentiality and the wider public interest in the availability of useful output from the NCPD”.

Until now, APRA has only used the data to produce “level one” reports, information it describes as “highly aggregated” and of “limited utility”.

But the regulator has been limited from going further by confidentiality agreements brokered by insurers who fear the release of commercially sensitive information.

APRA now aims to publish periodic “level two” reports capable of supplying information on a number of policy and claim measures such as written premium and claims incurred. These records would provide information by state, product, industry and occupation codes, limit of indemnity and excess and deductible records.

It has now proposed three options for the database, with each option addressing various levels of “masking” specific information. The regulator says “masking” compromises potential benefits. Full confidentiality would see the release of only 50% of total policy data and 25% of available claim data.

The first option would see APRA release level two reports containing both aggregate policy and claim information with full confidentiality protection.

Under the second option, APRA will release level two claim reports without masking data but without identifying individual insurers. APRA states claim data may be considered less commercially sensitive than premium data, and policy reports would continue to be treated with full confidentiality.

The final option under consideration would contain aggregate policy and claim information with no confidentiality masking in place.