Compulsory third party (CTP) car insurance premiums could skyrocket in South Australia unless the Government intervenes, warns Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire in an
ABC report.
Said the report, the first year that the Motor Accident Commission has been privatised, premiums have increased by $11.
The SA Government has capped premiums for the first three years of the sell-off but Brokenshire said his concern was for the period after that, as premiums in New South Wales have risen 70 per cent over the five years after its CTP insurance market was privatised, said the
ABC report.
“It’s just going to be astronomical. We saw huge increases in NSW, we’ll see the same here and this is unfair on motorists,” Brokenshire told
ABC.
“What I’m calling on the Government to do is to ensure that the increases on CTP are in line with state inflation and not fourfold the state inflation figures for this year.”
Rob Lucas, opposition treasury spokesman, said the Government has broken its promise to keep CTP premiums increases “CPI-like” after the privatisation:
"[Treasurer Tom] Koutsantonis went ahead and allowed the new private sector insurance companies to increase premiums by 2.9 per cent each year for the next three years."
"However Treasury has included its estimates of CPI in the budget papers as only 1.75 per cent this year and 2.25 per cent and 2.5 per cent for the next two years," Lucas said.
Premier Jay Weatherial responded to the charge, saying the latest CTP rise amounted to “less than a dollar a month.”
"We think these are modest rises, obviously we want them as low as possible," he said.
"Essentially it is capped at those types of increase for the next few years until it goes out to the full market system post-2018."
Related stories:
Industry welcomes CTP insurance reforms
NSW unveils insurance pricing plan for ride-sharing
