The article “Cheaper Car Insurance: Ontario drivers will wait two more years” highlights many of the current problems in Ontario’s auto insurance industry. High premiums, fraud, problems with payouts for injuries, claim costs, resolution back-logs, and benefit cuts returning $2B back to insurers are all mentioned. As a rehabilitation provider working in the auto insurance industry, I can confirm that the current product is fraught with problems. However, from the health provider and claimant perspective, affordability is the least of the industry’s problems. Rather, there is growing concern regarding insurer practices that are unfair and deceptive, negligent, involve failed fiduciary duties, and seem to violate the Canadian Charter. Issues with professionals as assessors, and provider contracts are also rampant. This paper will review Ontario’s insurance industry, aiming to highlight the many legal problems surrounding a controversial product that impacts all drivers. Cheaper Car Insurance Price is the least of the problems by Julie Entwistle
Author Archives: Admin2
Taxpayers group urges radical cuts to pay off Ontario deficit
In a budget submission to Finance Minister Charles Sousa, the right-wing lobby group called for dramatic — and politically unpalatable — changes to the way business is done at Queen’s Park. These include: scrapping “corporate welfare,” such as the investments Ontario has made to companies like Cisco Systems in order to attract jobs, which could save $2.7 billion annually.
Desjardins’ State Farm Canada combo a ‘distribution play around financial services’ former Dominion CEO Cooke says
“You put the device in the car and a lot of the historical rating variables and the data associated with it become irrelevant,” he said. “Claims history is irrelevant, convictions are irrelevant. How you accelerate, if you have lane drift, or if you’re speeding in a school zone, the conditions that you drive in. You can overlay weather data. There are all kinds of great things that you can do to get at the actual risks associated with driving the vehicle.”
Speaker’s Corner: Hryniak will have profound impact on civil proceedings
And the advice is blunt. To the bar, the Supreme Court said lawyers must change their culture in favour of a litigation procedure that “facilitates rather than frustrates access to justice” because their current approach focuses too much on painstaking procedure at the expense of proportionate, timely, and affordable adjudication. Lawyers can’t depend on judges to rein them in. They must do this for themselves.
http://scc-csc.lexum.com/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/13427/1/document.do
Hard times for family caregiver
The Ontario government recently blindsided the personal injury community with a further amendment to the Ontario Statutory Accident Benefit Schedule (SABS), designed to essentially eliminate the possibility of friends and family members providing paid attendant care services to injured loved ones following a motor vehicle accident. http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=2068
Padded legal fees Not all lawyers engage in dubious billing practices, but enough do to warrant scrutiny
Lawyers must recognize that hours spent on a file do not always translate into value and that clients deserve to receive true value for the fees they pay.
INSURANCE PROBLEMS DISTORTED: NEW INSURANCE BUREAU ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED
“The Insurance Bureau is distorting the extent of the problem in the system with their advertising campaign in an effort to pressure government to further restrict car accident victims’ rights. Too often, serious auto accident victims are the losers when it comes to this type of distorted campaign. That’s the sad reality of the “Car Accident Business” in Ontario—with no exit in sight.”
http://otlablog.com/insurance-problems-distorted-new-insurance-bureau-advertising-campaign-launched/
One problem that requires fixing — the “Independent Medical Examination”
“There have been ongoing concerns regarding the quality and independence of medical examinations of injured claimants. So much so that the term “IME” no longer represents “Independent Medical Examination” but is now used to represent “Insurer Medical Examination”. The integrity of the system used to evaluate access to insurance benefits has lost the confidence of consumers.”….”The present Review of Ontario’s Dispute Resolution System is a consequence of this corrosion of confidence. It is important for the integrity of the IME system that a new method of evaluating claimants be considered.”
Supreme Court of Canada stipulates ‘new approach’ to handling lawsuits in Ontario
In its ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada noted that trials, “with unnecessary expense and delay, can prevent the fair and just resolution of disputes.”
“The full trial has become largely illusory because, except where government funding is available, ordinary Canadians cannot afford to access the adjudication of civil disputes,” wrote Justice Karakatsanis. http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/news/supreme-court-of-canada-stipulates-new-approach-to-handling-lawsuits-in-ontario/1002891614/s7vw03Wsv64srM2vx/?ref=enews_CU&utm_source=CU&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CU-EN01312014
What is a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury?
What is a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI)? [Video]
Brain injuries are classified mild, moderate, or severe. The leading causes are vehicle-related collisions, falls, sports injuries, and assaults. Of these brain injuries, 70-90% are considered “mild”. It is important to realize, however, that there is nothing “mild” about a traumatic brain i…