CIN is a non-profit Advocate for Insurance and Health Care Reform.
Postings are cut/paste from other sources. @Cinsurancenews #rally4accidentvictims #ABPetition #CPPbacklog
Thank you for signing up with Team Singh in the fight for fair auto insurance rates in Ontario. My promise to you is simple: I'll never stop speaking out on the issues that matter. The reality is that the Ontario Liberal government has the power and the ability to reduce auto insurance rates across the board, and promised to reduce rates for drivers over two years ago. I refuse to let them back down on their promise. I'll keep you informed on our progress and future initiatives in this battle, and feel free to reach out and share your story or concerns. Thank's for the support! Until next time, Jagmeet.
FAIR has put together a paper version of the petition calling for a
Public Inquiry into the medical evidence used in our courts and
administrative tribunals. It is the same as the one we have asked you to
sign online.
The Ontario Legislature ONLY accepts ORIGINAL petitions, on paper,
with ‘hand signed’ signatures. There are strict rules for petitions so
NDP MPP Jagmeet Singh’s office has generously agreed to receive the
paper petition in his office and present it at Queen’s Park.
If you or a loved one were injured in an auto accident, at work or
elsewhere wouldn’t you want an honest, unbiased and qualified medical
opinion/report of your injuries? That’s just not happening in Ontario
for injured and disabled individuals who make a claim for benefits
through their private or public insurers. What if it was your fault that
something happens to someone else? You’d want them to have the best
chance at recovery wouldn’t you?
Please print, sign and circulate the petition because quality and
qualified medical evidence shouldn’t be something we need – it should be
something we already have because there is no real justice without it.
Make a copy and mail the ORIGINAL copies to: MPP Jagmeet Singh, Room
172 Main Legislative Building, Queen’s Park 111 Wellesley St. Toronto,
ON M7A 1A5
Thanks for being part of the collective voice needed for change!
Last week, Insurance Businessreported on a rally
that was being planned in protest of “shady” industry practices and the
liberal government’s call for reduced MVA benefits as part of the
provincial budget.
A spokesperson for reports with one of the rally’s organizers, FAIR
Association of Victims for Accident Insurance Reform, reports that the
event was “a great success with hundreds of people attending, either
victims or their supporters.”
New Democratic Party MPP Jagmeet Singh addressed the crowd to lambaste
the cuts as well, arguing that they hurt society’s “most vulnerable
people.”
“It was a lively and vocal crowd who came out,” FAIR Board Chair Rhona
Desroches said. “Many of the participants and certainly the auto
accident victims who gave speeches were in various stages of recovery
and I'm especially grateful that they came to speak for future victims
who won't have the level of coverage that they themselves did
post-accident.”
Desroches is referring to a little known provision where MVAs who
sustained injuries prior to 2010 coverage reductions receive a greater
share of benefits than MVAs injured recently, further exacerbated by the
fact that “insurers made some benefits more difficult to access last
year, i.e. qualifying for attendant care costs.”
The group hopes that this rally will incite a more vocal public outcry
against Ontario’s treatment of MVA victims, who they believe are
neglected in favor of insurance companies.
“The message is that MVA victims are not worth their time or the effort
of the legislators who continue to assist Ontario's wealthy insurers
profit margins rather than ensuring that Ontarians have coverage enough
to recover. It's shameful,” Desroches said.
When will the dubious "preferred
vendors" of the Ontario auto insurers' "proof" of massive opportunistic
fraud be put under scrutiny? Systemic, bogus accusations of malingering
churned out by pro-insurer medico-legal 'experts' are first used (on
a case by case basis) to deny benefits and then, in turn, trotted out
by the Liberals as proof, on a policy level, that quad/paraplegics and
brain inured accident victims are being treated "over-generously" and
getting money "that needs to go to the people who really need it". We
need to look at the long trail of sketchy "medical authorities" that
Ontario governments have used to attack the credibility of the injured
and the honesty of all Ontario motorists - a trail reaching all the way
back to Dr. James N. Sears (aka Dimitri the Lover) - the insurer's
"medical authority" behind the Harris "Rate Stability Act". And here we are: deja vue all over again!!!
Brianon
2015-06-07 10:28:09 AM
In terms of cause - one can draw a
straight line between these latest cuts to the catastrophically injured
back to the Liberal/IBC cherry-picked Panel of Experts on Catastrophic
Injury which concluded that what counts as "catastrophic" injury is too
generous and that the criteria needs to be made tougher for the most
seriously injured to "thread" the catastrophic injury definition
"needle". The Liberals have decided to double-down on that
insurer-friendly report and use at not just to come up with a more
narrow definition of catastrophic injury - but also to justify cutting
in half the treatment and attendant care benefits of the handful of
injured claimants who will ever be able meet the upcoming
stricter/tougher/revised catastrophic injury definition. All this thanks
to a Panel of "preferred" insurer IME vendors and a couple of
epidemiologists who never have and never will meet (much less treat) a
catastrophically injured auto accident victim.
Rickon
2015-06-07 7:31:56 PM
So coverage will be cut in half. I
guess there's a refund on its way to everyone. Fat chance of that ever
happening. Good on this group of concerned citizens for getting out
there and making some noise about the evaporating coverage Ontario has.
They've forgotten that they are selling, we are buying so we expect
something for all those $billions we pay for coverage besides converting
our policy dollars to Liberal campaign contributions.
Brianon
2015-06-07 11:38:10 PM
Ironically, the editorial position
in today's Sunday Sun has some choice words to say about the Ontario
auto insurers' "shady practices": http://www.torontosun.com/2015/06/06/car-crash-victims-deserve-better-deal
Prior
to the passage of the budget, Finance Minister Charles Sousa boasted,
“Ontario is the most generous in Canada when it comes to providing
coverage for auto insurance.”
Last week, Sun legal affairs analyst Alan Shanoff, demonstrated conclusively in his column how this statement was inaccurate.
In
fact, Ontario doesn’t provide the most generous benefits for either
catastrophic injuries or for so-called “minor” ones, which can include
dislocation of joints, partial tears of tendons and ligaments and
whiplash not exhibiting neurological symptoms.
As the FAIR
Association of Victims for Accident Insurance Reform put it: “The budget
does nothing to ensure that insurer claims management practices are
fair and there has been no action (to deal with) ... the biased and
corrupt insurer medical examination reports that are disqualifying
innocent and legitimate accident victims.”
We agree. It’s time to end this type of insurance fraud, as well.
Brianon
2015-06-08 1:34:55 PM
The insurers say they won’t tolerate
auto insurance fraud. Nor should they. So was this National Claims
Manager (below) prosecuted – or not? If not – why the double standard?
Is insider fraud tolerable?
LAWYER HELPED IN $1.5M FRAUD A Toronto lawyer has had his licence revoked for his part in a $1.5-million insurance fraud.
Pradeep
Bridglal Pachai admitted to taking part in a scheme that saw a senior
employee at an insurance company client authorize higher payments to
settle litigation than was needed and the two men pocketing the
difference.
Pachai claimed he was pressured into the scheme by
Vinti Sansanwal, national claims director at HB Group Insurance
Management Ltd., fearing he would cut him off from legal work defending
the company, which had become his largest client.
Initially,
Pachai said he thought the arrangement was for one time only, but
between 2005 and 2007, the scam snowballed, netting the pair $1.5
million from 11 files with the lawyer keeping $675,000 of the spoils for
his role.
The scheme came crashing down after an anonymous tip
led to an investigation and Sansanwal’s dismissal. The insurance company
then launched a civil action to recover the funds that named Pachai as a
defendant. After he made restitution, the claim against him was
dismissed.
Close family and four lawyer colleagues acted as
character witnesses for Pachai during the hearing. They labelled his
actions as being out of character.
In the meantime, Pachai asked
the Law Society of Upper Canada to impose a lengthy ban, but the panel
disagreed, noting the mitigating circumstances weren’t sufficient “to
justify a second chance.”
“There is no satisfactory explanation
for his misconduct; it was a self-interested, economic choice which was
not forced upon him, even if it was devised and initiated by Mr.
Sansanwal.
Nor was it unavoidable, in the sense that it was out
of character because it was caused by a disability, addiction or any
similar factor,” wrote Bencher Raj Anand on behalf of the three-person
panel.
The panel awarded no costs, noting Pachai had co-operated
fully and wouldn’t be able to pay since having voluntarily ceased
practice in 2008.
Claire Laforeston
2015-06-08 5:18:59 PM
The proposed reductions in auto
insurance coverage are outrageous!! Unless you have walked a day with
Sara and the family during the last 19 months, you have no idea what
catastrophic injuries stemming from a brain injury caused by the MVA can
do to someone emotionally, physically and financially. You may think
that the proposed $500,000 for each of nursing care and medical/rehab
therapy over a lifetime is a lot of money but it's not! We have so far
spent close to $150,000 to $200,000 on Sary Buckley's injuries with
nursing care and rehab and were not even at the 2 year anniversary yet.
Home health care agencies charge between $25-$55/hr for PSW and RPN care
while the current insurance coverage allows for $15/hr for 400
hours/mth or 150 hours/mth at the industry rate. Therapists charge
between $100 and $150/hr plus mileage and report writing. Sara requires a
physiotherapist 3X/week, a speech therapist once to twice a week, a
rehab therapist every day and an occupational therapist every week. You
think that's a lot? Well, it's not when someone like Sara requires 24/7
care; she cannot walk, talk, feed, bathe or dress herself nor maintain
continence. All this at 18!! And then add to that the expenses related
to the drugs and tube feed not covered by extended health private
insurance and the cost of accommodating the accessibility to her home.
The proposed changes will reduce the current $2M in total allowance by
half. And this total $2M is not even what a survivor receives upon
settlement because of lawyer fees. These changes must be protested.
Proposed changes are going to be devastating. On behalf of all future
MVA victims, the proposed changes have to be stopped. Please sign
petitions!! Please participate in protests!! Contact your MPPs!! And the
Ontario Government should be ashamed of what they are putting forward,
in effect Sept. 2015!!
Griswald Gon
2015-06-08 9:30:24 PM
The public has no concept of what
rehabilitation and recovery can cost. Very few of us could afford what
we might need if we were brain-injured or catastrophically impaired. The
sense of urgency in Claire's posting is what most people feel when
faced with coping with injured loved ones. Our government has failed us
on many fronts when it comes to auto insurance and has allowed the IBC
to misinform us of the coverage we have with their constant propaganda
that everything is fine here, nothing to see, move along, we just need a
few more dollars to keep us going and hey look - we can just get it
from the victims - especially the worst off ones because they are least
likely to be able to complain about it. Maybe there is something to see,
and it all played out at the Rally last week when severely injured
people showed up to help others they don't even know. And that's a
darned sight more than our insurance companies do when we get injured in
a crash. What do we get - shipped off to some assessment mill and a
denial letter in the mail. Time to consider other possibilities like
public auto insurance in Ontario.
Brianon
2015-06-08 11:06:52 PM
Who to believe? That is the
question. We can believe the picture being painted by the IBC lobbyists.
They would have us believe the insurers money is spent on people who
only pretend to be catastrophically injured - and who - even if they are
catastrophically injured - are getting to much treatment and too much
attendant care. Twice as much in fact. Or, we can listen to the
decisions of triers of fact (the judges and arbitrators) who scrutinize
the way in which the insurers too often "treat" their most vulnerable
claimants. You be the judge. Here (excerpts below) is a case. Who would
you trust - the IBC's version of the story or this Arbitrator's
decision. The Ontario auto insurance litigation landscape is littered
with cases like this one chronicling all manner of insurer abuses. This
case manager ought to be ashamed for her implausible (falsified?)
reports submitted time and again and used to justify denial of care.
Isn't falsifying reports in this way a crime? If not - it ought to be. Michalski and Wawanesa [+] Arbitration, 2005-12-13, Reg 403/96. Final Decision
Each
of the case manager's subsequent reports to Wawanesa, in March, April,
May, June and July, 2002 state in the body of the report that Dr.
Dobrowolski continues to report further improvement. I find each of
those comments at significant odds with the contents of Dr.
Dobrowolski's notes, records, reports to third parties, and an
implausible summary of his opinion....
...I do not know why
Wawanesa preferred the opinions of the occupational therapists and the
case manager, flawed and deficient as they were, to the opinions of its
own psychiatrist and psychologist, whose greater expertise in assessing
Mrs. Michalski's cognitive function Wawanesa sought. I find Wawanesa
failed to act with sound and moderate judgment in reassessing evidence
from its own assessors. I find Wawanesa's actions and defaults overlap
and compound each other.
...I believe the sanction should
reflect that Wawanesa failed to meet its contractual obligations, and is
entirely to blame for the manner in which this claim unfolded. I agree
with the submission of counsel for the Applicant that it is difficult to
find a more vulnerable Applicant than Mrs. Michalski, who, as a result
of her injuries, functions like a two year old, was unrepresented by
counsel and whose primary language was not English. She could not be
safely left alone. Wawanesa repeatedly put her at risk. Fortunately, her
husband and children provided her with care. I believe the award should
also reflect that Wawanesa took advantage of Mrs. Michalski's children,
and should encompass the need to deter Wawanesa and other insurers from
engaging in similar conduct. Nothing indicates that Wawanesa is likely
to be subjected to any additional penalty as a result of its misconduct.
I agree with the view that interest is remedial C not a penalty.
R DeKrameron
2015-06-09 7:09:40 PM
Here's what a well-known insurer
medical assessment doctor told his college when called to task for his
poor quality medical report: There are three types of patients: 1.Patients with nothing wrong with them who are “pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes” 2.
Patients with no problem who think they have a problem. These patients
actually believe that there is something wrong with them, even though
there is not. 3. Patients with minor problem who have exaggerated this problem into something much bigger than it is.
Do
mva victims even have a chance? Not if there's no room to even consider
an injury. A blindness caused by the insurers handpicking and
handsomely paying their medical experts so they deny injuries even
exist. This is the system and what victims face every day.
TORONTO - Changes to auto insurance benefits for motor
vehicle accident victims passed in the Ontario legislature Wednesday
as part of the provincial budget.
“God help us all,” Tammy Kirkwood said upon hearing the news.
“We’re getting a lot less coverage for a lot more money and I’m
not sure why.”
Kirkwood was one of hundreds of protesters at Queen’s Park
rallying against reductions in auto insurance benefits which they say
will have the most effect on victims with catastrophic injuries.
The 47-year-old Orillia woman said protesters were “flabbergasted”
that the provincial government “was trying to disable our resources
and our funding to recover.”
Part of the changes to auto insurance rules under the new budget
mean that combined coverage for medical, rehabilitation and attendant
care benefits for the catastrophically injured will be cut in half
from its current cap of $2 million to $1 million.
Kirkwood survived a 2008 collision when a dump truck hit her car.
She had to be pried free from her vehicle by firefighters, and was
deemed catastrophically injured.
She says she was only able to move forward because she had access
to the services she needed.
Unable to return to work, Kirkwood now volunteers as an advocate
with FAIR Association of Victims for Accident Insurance Reform.
New Democratic Party MPP Jagmeet Singh spoke at the rally in
support of their cause.
The cuts affect “the most vulnerable people,” such as people
with brain and spinal cord injuries, he said.
“They need benefit coverage ... to live an at least somewhat
decent life,” Singh pointed out.
A spokesman for Finance Minister Charles Sousa said the government
is “working hard to create a fair and affordable insurance system”
for the province’s 9.4 million drivers.
Ontario is “the only province in Canada to offer exclusive
catastrophic coverage,” Kelsey Ingram said in an e-mail.
“Catastrophically impaired claimants will also continue to be
able to sue an at-fault party to recover damages for health-care
expenses and potentially other claims,” she added.
The provincial government is also committed to making sure any
savings from these changes do not result in “excess profits” for
insurance companies, Ingram said.
“This is about lowering premiums while providing support and
protection for all Ontario drivers,” she said.
