A report issued earlier this week by two consumer organizations that charges the insurance industry has created a “fake” crisis allegedly generated by high jury awards is “methodologically flawed,” the American Property Casualty Insurance Association says.

The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Federation of American and the Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School said the industry is overcapitalized and already charges too much in premiums.

The report “is little more than a rehashed amalgam of the authors’ opinions accusations, and news articles masquerading as analytics,” APCIA President and CEO David A. Sampson said in the statement.

The statement lists several examples that, it says, set the record straight, including that median jury awards for personal injury lawsuits have more than tripled in the past eight years, and that the number of “mega/nuclear” jury awards of more than $5 million has grown by “well over” 50% since 2011.

“It is troubling that the CFA and its allies in the plaintiffs’ bar would try to manipulate policymakers into ignoring factual cost increases that harm consumers,” the statement said. “Moreover, it is ironic that they claim that ‘social inflation’ is an industry invention when, based on the facts, it is a product of plaintiffs’ bar lawsuit abuse.

 “The hard proof of social inflation isn’t difficult to find. The ‘tort tax,’ what all businesses and individuals bear for this runaway litigation ‘market,’ is on the rise and currently exceeds $3,300 per household nationally, with costs in many problem states well above that figure,” the statement said.

Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy, responded in a statement, “This [APCIA] statement is a flimsy response to our exhaustive analysis. There is nothing flawed in our methodology. Our findings are consistent with a multitude of other sources, including official litigation and insurance data, jury verdict databases, the views of others within the insurance industry who doubt the existence of social inflation, and other industry analyses.”