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Brokers, do your auto insurers cover HST on capped benefits?

November 14, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

Brokers placing Ontario auto coverage should ask insurers whether they are including sales tax when they calculate caps on benefits, a lawyer told Canadian Underwriter Tuesday. Ontario consumers must pay 13% Harmonized Sales Tax on many goods and services. Some

News InsuranceLegislation / Regulation

Legislature defeats bill quashing territorial ratings in Toronto area

November 5, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

If you have clients living in Brampton or near the intersection of Jane St. and Finch Ave., they will probably continue paying more for auto insurance than if they lived elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area. A bill proposing to

News InsuranceLegislation / Regulation

Raise auto accident benefits: Ontario politician

October 31, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

The cuts to mandatory auto accident benefits made in 2010 and 2016 need a second look, says Ontario’s opposition auto insurance critic. “It’s something we need to re-examine,” Gurratan Singh, the New Democratic Party’s auto insurance critic, said Wednesday in

News InsuranceLegal

Why this 1996 auto accident benefits claim has not been resolved

October 31, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

An accident benefits claimant who a designated assessment centre concluded 22 years ago was not disabled still has a chance to claim income replacement benefits, Ontario’s Divisional Court has ruled. Dharam Sidhu was involved in a traffic accident in 1996. He

News InsuranceLegislation / Regulation

Motor vehicles that might lack adequate insurance

October 30, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

Home insurance clients might lack sufficient insurance if they own golf carts or all-terrain vehicles, an insurance lawyer warns. “Someone might be driving a golf cart that they own privately, in a gated community, and they might not have any

News BrokersInsuranceMarkets / Coverages

Brokers need to intensify lobby on auto file: Intact president

October 18, 2018 by David Gambrill

Facing an imminent hard market in auto insurance lines, brokers need to intensify their lobbying efforts to inform Ontario MPPs about the pricing issues associated with the auto insurance product, a senior executive of Canada’s largest insurer told brokers Thursday.

News InsuranceLegal

A ‘lessee’ is not necessarily the person who paid for the rented vehicle

October 2, 2018 by David Gambrill

A “lessee” under Ontario’s Insurance Act is the person whom the rental company would sue to enforce the rental contract, a court reaffirmed Monday. In Aviva v. Wawanesa, the Ontario Superior Court decided a recent priority dispute between insurers. The

News InsuranceTechnology

A better way to transfer bad risks off the books

September 27, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

Law makers and regulators are stopping insurers from using technology that could actually help customers, speakers from two of Canada’s top three property and casualty carriers warn. Insurers have plenty of data that they could potentially use to rate auto,

News InsuranceLegalMarkets / Coverages

Car surfing covered by auto insurance, court finds

September 27, 2018 by David Gambrill

Auto insurance covers “car surfing,” in which a person rides on the top or rear of a moving vehicle, an Ontario court has found. “Car surfing or attaching oneself to a vehicle, while reckless and dangerous, is not a more

News InsuranceLegislation / Regulation

Regulation suppressing required auto insurance rate increases

September 6, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

Some Canadian auto insurers would hike rates even further if provincial bureaucrats would let them, a New Jersey-based analyst said Wednesday at A.M. Best’s 2018 Insurance Market Briefing-Canada in Toronto. In a recent report, A.M. Best Company Inc. warned of

News InsuranceLegislation / Regulation

Insurer CEO to personally visit FSCO asking for higher rates

August 30, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

The newly-elected Ontario government should let carriers change their rates without approval from the Financial Services Commission of Ontario, the president of a mutual that writes auto contends. It “makes sense” to require insurers to file rates with FSCO “but

News InsuranceLegal

When parents give their kids permission to drive: the limit to ‘implied consent’

August 24, 2018 by Greg Meckbach

An Ontario auto insurer went too far in arguing that a motorist gave her son – whose license was suspended – implied permission to drive her vehicle because she left the keys on a hook while she was out of