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The actual problems with Ontario auto insurance are no mystery

Marshall called for a system focused on care, not cash payments. One would expect to get appropriate health care after an auto accident, but the Ontario government has farmed that out to the insurance companies without clear guidelines defining appropriate care. That leaves insurance companies to take the cheapest possible approach and often compels accident victims to hire lawyers to fight for better treatment, Marshall observes.

Ontario needs simple, quick and consistent assessment of accident injuries and the appropriate treatments from an independent organization. That is part of the mandate of the newly-created Financial Services Regulatory Authority, so maybe there is hope.

Balancing that hope is the fact that Ontario’s ineffective, costly auto insurance regime is largely the fault of successive provincial governments. They set the rules and a provincial agency approves the continual price increases. Just this month, it blessed raising insurance costs by an average of 3.35 per cent. The system is so bureaucratic that the government agency even has to approve rate decreases.

If the Ford government were to adapt the approach identified in the Marshall report, Ontarians would be vastly farther ahead, but we’d still have a system where it is extremely difficult to sue for damages unless one has a serious and permanent impairment. Say you endured two years of pain and treatment but eventually got better. It is quite difficult to make the other driver’s insurer pay any cash penalty for that. Is it fair? As one might imagine, insurers like this provision quite a bit.

Ontarians pay the second-highest auto insurance bills in the country, even though the province’s accident rate is relatively low and declining. Insurers say they are losing money, paying out $1.03 in claims for every $1 they take in. Accident victims have to fight for their rights and often don’t get timely care.

The system is a mess. If the Ford government can fix it, it will be a huge win for the public.

Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and former Ontario PC candidate. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com