Tuesday: Prime minister's question time

The row over spiralling motor insurance premiums has made its way through the corridors of power right to the prime minister’s office. This afternoon’s summit between David Cameron and the industry’s top brass powerfully demonstrates that motor insurance is the industry’s shop window.

However important other areas of the market are to businesses and individuals, it is surely only an outcry over motor or flooding that would see the PM get personally involved.

This is both a challenge, and an opportunity. A challenge because the market for motor insurance is deeply flawed and insurers, as well as many other parties, are complicit.

It’s not clear how long the industry leaders will have with the PM this afternoon – but it’s not going to be long enough to explain the myriad problems of referral fees, whiplash claims, claims management companies and spiralling fraud that dog the industry.

If Cameron can resist playing a blame-game today, he will find an industry that shares his goals”

Luckily, a lot of the work has already been done, by Lord Justice Jackson among others. If Cameron can resist playing a blame-game today, he will find an industry that shares his goals and has a clear vision of how to meet them. On the table today will be referral fees for personal injury claims, measures to cut whiplash-related claims and the use of telematics to bring down premiums. All sensible measures that work for the government, the industry – and the policyholder.

But it’s not just personal lines up for discussion today. The compensation culture that Cameron has already spoken out against is also on the agenda, and this is a fantastic opportunity for the insurance industry to use this unprecedented level of access to make its case.

With flooding negotiations also hovering on the horizon, 2012 could be the year when the government reaches a New Deal with the insurance industry. That process starts today.