Insurers to create complaint officer positions to deal with wrongful denials of plate renewals

Ontario’s Uninsured Vehicles Project (OUVP) generated a fair amount of discussion between industry and regulator stakeholders about what consumers should do in the event of wrongful denials of license plate renewals.
The OUVP is designed to reduce the number of uninsured vehicles driving on Ontario roads.
Under the project, consumers are checked for their insurance status at the same time they apply for their license plate renewals. If the consumer’s information does not match the data found in the Insurance Industry Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) Database, the consumer’s renewal may be denied.
Stakeholders met several times to discuss what would happen in the event that a renewal was wrongly rejected because of a glitch in the system, according to documents posted on the Web site of the Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO).
The discussions resulted in the creation of a designated Consumer Complaint Officer (CCO) at each insurance company. The phone numbers of the CCOs are to be posted on the Web site of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO), the province’s   insurance regulator.
Also, each company must have a complaint process that includes information on how a consumer can make a complaint, how long it will take to make a complaint and the options for a consumer whose complaint is left unresolved.