Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
^^^
The PCs need to go. The time has come. Get out and vote. This stuff is really evil:
Despite the fact that the study found no evidence whatsoever of fraud, the coalition, and the Insurance Bureau of Canada, repeatedly stated as fact that the study showed fraud was being committed on a large scale. By claiming that 24 per cent of all personal injury claims in Alberta were fraudulent, the coalition and the insurance bureau had effectively accused nearly a quarter of all accident-injured Albertans of fraud, an unsubstantiated accusation that was nevertheless widely reported by the media.
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I full-heartedly agree with the top point, however to defend insurance companies, it's not like it's an easy thing to prove that a plaintiff is lying about their soft-tissue injuries. The Plaintiff's pain and suffering is often the only way to make a determination in a lot of cases. Which means essentially the only person who really knows the extent would be the injured/fake injured. Hence the ability to easily cheat the system.
I was in a 6-car pile-up whose fault was determined to be the three cars behind me back in High School (years before the cap on soft tissue). Everyone in the crash were students at my high school. The first question their insurance company had for me was how much did I need for whiplash considering the two people in the cars immediately behind me were seeking $10,000 a piece. Since I went to football practice that afternoon and every other afternoon after the accident and suffered no lingering effects I declined. I settled for a cheque for the value of my first vehicle, a Red 1990 Plymouth Grand Voyager (AKA the Shaggin Wagon!) that was written off.
Why would they be so willing to stuff money in my face? Because they knew I could have gotten my chunk out of them in court should I have bothered to manufacture a case based on exaggerated pain and suffering, costing them a bunch in legal fees on top of whatever settlement I won. Lower forms of life indeed milked the system for more than was deserved. Whether it be the 24% figure or 10% or 5%, all the insurance companies knew is that soft-tissue expenses was becoming an expense that was increasing exponentially with eash passing year that was severly impacting the cost of insurance to the end user.
Now either this really and truly was the cost of pain and suffering and thus insurance rates were fairly priced and nothing should have been done or they were getting hosed by fraud or a combination of both. In either case the wrong decision was made because the PCs 'solution' wrongly lumped in the 76% (or more as stated by the quote) of people who legitimately needed compensation for their injuries with the fraudsters. In other words the old Soviet method of capturing 50 innocent people to ensure the one guilty person gets their punnishment.