Our comment may not make it into print (again) but we do try!
Regulation
plays an important role in achieving financial system safety and
stability, but another key function is “to ensure that the financial
sector does its job effectively and efficiently to support a healthy
economy,” says Don Forgeron, president and CEO of the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).
FAIR Association Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by www.canadianunderwriter.ca.
How
is Ontario a winner when there are now 61,063 auto insurance related
cases pending in Ontario's civil courts? What about the estimated 25,000
victims at FSCO waiting for mediation or arbitration hearings to hold
their insurer accountable? Clearly Ontario's auto insurance industry is
not supporting a healthy economy when this many innocent and injured
auto insurance victims do not have access to the coverage promised in
their policies. Withholding timely rehabilitation and income replacement
isn't promoting anyone's economic growth other than the insurers who
are investing the claims dollars that they should be paying to victims.
Insurers donate to Ontario's Food Banks to assist those in poverty and
it is quite likely that it is their own customers who are ending up
there - on welfare, Ontario Disability and CPP disability when it turns
out that their policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. It is
Ontario's drivers who are doing the risk-taking when they get in their
car with the belief that they have good coverage that will be there when
they need it.
A
damning report on the auto insurance industry in Ontario was released
yesterday by two York University professors in Toronto, on behalf of the
Ontario Trial Lawyers Association. The report suggests insurers were
allowed to overcharge insurance premiums dating back to 2001,