Drivers should focus on the amount of coverage — not premiums — when choosing car insurance, says Oakville bicycle accident and personal injury lawyer Jill Edwards.
As part of his first budget, Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli recently unveiled Putting Drivers First, the provincial government’s plan for auto insurance reform.
“It starts with giving drivers more options when deciding which auto insurance coverage suits their needs, and gives them more control over their rates,” Fedeli said during his budget speech at Queen’s Park. “We will make it easier and faster for insurance companies to offer drivers new discounts and coverage options that were not previously available.”
But Edwards, a partner with Edwards Pollard, says she’s worried about the overwhelming focus on cheaper rates in the approach taken by this provincial administration and by its Liberal predecessors.
“It’s hard for lawyers — let alone the public — to keep on top of all the changes that occur each time a government gets involved,” she tells AdvocateDaily.com. “All people hear is lower rates, but what they don’t understand is that they’re giving up a lot of coverage to get that.”
If there is a silver lining in the provincial government’s proposed approach, Edwards says it can be found in its promise to restore the $2-million limit on benefits for catastrophically impaired accident victims under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS).
In June 2016, the combined limit for attendant care and medical rehabilitation services available under the SABS for those whose injuries were designated catastrophic was halved to $1 million, but the recent changes will restore the old $2-million limit.
“It’s likely the only positive thing that will come out of all these changes, but it was a big mistake to drop the limit in the first place in 2016,” Edwards says, explaining that she and others in the personal injury field have had a front-row view of the impact of that Liberal government decision.
“It was simply not enough money, especially when someone has lost limbs and is going to need prosthetics for the remainder of their life,” she says.
Edwards suspects the raised catastrophic injury limit will come at a cost to consumers, noting that many of the budget measures — including giving drivers the option to lower their rates by providing details on their credit history or committing to use preferred auto repair and health-care providers — suggest the acceleration of an existing trend towards optional premiums for enhanced care if it’s needed.
“The government is trying to cut costs for insurance companies who still make huge profits each year,” Edwards says. “My concern is that more customization and choice will lead to people choosing the cheapest rate they can find without understanding what they are giving up.
“People don’t tend to think in terms of getting the best coverage you can in case you ever need access to it, and they won’t be able to afford the treatment they need should they be injured in the future,” she says.
In addition, Edwards says the government’s “care not cash” proposal to challenge existing legal settlement options is based on the false premise that lawyers’ fees are the real problem in the personal injury field.
“It’s a little misleading,” she says. “What I think is going to happen is that accident victims will still be subject to all these assessments by insurers’ doctors if they don’t think their treatment is necessary or reasonable.
“We’ll end up with the same result, which is that people are not getting the treatment they need — without any real recourse in terms of fighting those denied treatment decisions,” Edwards adds.