IBC encourages Ontario to act with urgency on auto insurance file

The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) is keeping a watchful eye on the impact of Ontario’s 2010 auto insurance reforms and ongoing related initiatives, urging the provincial government to act quickly on its commitments to amend the catastrophic impairment definition and Minor Injury Guideline.

Ontario committed to a new definition of a catastrophic impairment in its 2012 budget, and the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) is currently working on this. FSCO says it also expects to have completed a new, evidence-based Minor Injury Treatment Protocol in two years.

In the meantime, FSCO is working on a range of other initiatives related to the auto insurance reforms, including measures to prevent auto insurance fraud.

All of these initiatives are key features of the auto insurance reforms that Ontario implemented in 2010, but the urgency to move the file along has not abated.

“Without urgency in reform delivery, and specifically in the definition of catastrophic impairment, the danger exists that reforms will not achieve government’s goals, the industry’s goals or, most importantly, meet the needs of consumers over the long-term,” IBC president and CEO Don Forgeron said in an address to the bureau’s annual general meeting in Toronto on Apr. 25.

Forgeron noted that while the industry waits for these items to be addressed, other auto insurance issues remain or are emerging on the IBC’s radar that may threaten the affordability of auto insurance in Ontario.

“There are still some health care clinics and providers who regularly exact exorbitant payments for physical assessments of injuries,” he said. “This predatory practice adds far too much unnecessary cost to the system,” he said

“Also, bodily injury claims have been on the rise, with the loss ratio rising by more than 23 percentage points since the end of 2009.

“IBC has put forward solutions to these problems. We urge government to implement them.”