New Brunswick Consumer Advocate for Insurance advocates on its own behalf

New Brunswick’s Consumer Advocate for Insurance is advocating for its own existence, resisting a recommendation in a July 2011 report to fold the office into a larger public utilities framework.

The office was established in 2005 “not only as one of the reforms to deal with the auto insurance crisis prevailing at that time, but more fundamentally as a means of giving a voice and a tool to the consumers of this province who felt powerless and defenceless against a mighty and powerful insurance industry,” Ronald Godin, consumer advocate for insurance for New Brunswick, wrote in his 2011 Annual Report.

“The office has been successful in providing some relief to the consumers in regards to their predicament. Implementing a recommendation that would substantially alter the nature of the office would likely lead to a reoccurrence of the feeling of imbalance and inequity that existed at the time.”

The New Brunswick Energy Commission recommended in May 2011 that the province adopt a more expansive and rigorous utilities regulatory framework. Such a framework would include the oversight of energy, insurance and water rates, as well as property tax assessment appeals.

At roughly the same time, the province asked former Ombudsman and Child and Youth Advocate Bernard Richard to identify ways to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of eight legislative officers — including the Consumer Advocate for Insurance — without impairing their independence.

“There may be a sound argument for folding the Consumer Advocate for Insurance role into the wider advocacy function within such an expanded public utilities body,” Richards’s June 2011 status report notes. “However, before such a conclusion is reached, more information needs to be gathered about the advocacy arrangements in other jurisdictions.”

Godin responded in his report, published in April 2012, that “to reassign the responsibilities of the Consumer Advocate, along with the resources of the office, to the Ombudsman upon the expiration of the present term, is unwarranted.”

Godin’s 10-year term began on Jan. 1, 2005.