The price of insuring a taxi, especially if you haven’t a full no claims bonus, has gone up dramatically, making it harder to make a living for taxi drivers.

Padraig Lynch from Chill Insurance explained the main reasons “Essentially what’s happened is, between 2003 and 2013, car insurance premiums have reduced by 47%. There was good stuff happening… [but then] really intense competition came in, and insurance companies focused on market share. Quite clearly they have driven the price down to a level which is not sustaniable”.

He pointed out that in 2014 in car insurance alone, insurance companies lost 175m. They are now attempting to get pricing back to a level where they can receive a return on their capital – which is naturally driving the premium prices upwards.

He highlighted 200m a year in legal fees, which he calls an ‘unnecessary burden’ for punters to pick up. He also observed that “fraud is rampant”.

“Insurance prices may need to go up, because of an element of correction. But we do not need to pay for waste. We do not need to pay for fraud. We do not need to pay for lawyers”, Conor Faughnan of the AA argued.