Australian state and territory-owned general insurers paid $326 million on more than 10,000 claims for professional indemnity (PI) and public and product liability insurance in 2008, according to new data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

About 80% of claims were for public and product liability business, with the remaining 20% for PI.

APRA has only recently begun releasing claims data for state and territory insurers.

Such insurers operate in each state, including the Commonwealth, and mainly operate as captives.

The reports, available online, cover claims from 2003 to December 31 2008 and are sourced from the regulator’s National Claims and Policies Database (NCPD).

Until now, only reports containing claims and policy information for APRA-regulated general insurers have been produced from the NCPD.

APRA Executive Member John Trowbridge saluted the state and territory insurers for supplying the data and agreeing to their release in full, without any “masking” to protect confidentiality.

The regulator took a poke at the private sector general insurers, saying their NCPD data is still being masked “to maintain confidentiality”.

“As a result, large volumes of data are being excluded from the reports, severely limiting their value.”