Judicial ruling concerning Ontario’s minor injury treatment protocol unlikely before 2014-15

A judicial ruling in Ontario on the Minor Injury Guideline (MIG), introduced by the province in 2010 and which defines the scope of a minor injury, likely won’t happen before 2014 or even 2015, according to Kadey B.J. Schultz, partner with Hughes Amys LLP.
This is due to a backlog that exists at the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) in processing the applications for mediation. The delay is expected to flow over to the applications for arbitrations and actual hearings.
Schultz spoke at the Ontario Insurance Adjusters Association (OIAA)’s 2012 Professional Development & Claims Conference in Toronto on Feb. 8.
“If the insurance industry too aggressively tries to apply the MIG, many consequences will follow,” she said. “One, obviously, is that we will lose the PR campaign. It’s a huge issue.”
The plaintiff bar is working diligently to create the impression that Ontario auto insurers are unfairly revoking the rights and benefits of claimants, Schultz observed.
“In order to manage that PR campaign, insurers need to proceed with utmost fairness,” she said. “We need to operate with clean hands. We need to be diligent. We need to know what the case law is saying about how to be fair and adjust a claim with open eyes.”
Proceeding in this way will help to make sure that, when arbitrators start issuing decisions over the next three years, the rulings will be favourable decisions for insurers.
Otherwise, Schultz warned, the industry is going to “create tangible problems going forward after the next five year review.”