Quote:
Originally Posted by GordonBlue
you didn't speak to anything about this:
In a no-fault system, accident victims do not have the right to sue at-fault drivers; instead, their own insurers pay out injury benefits based on predetermined guidelines.
we're supposed to give up our ability to sue, and trust a for profit insurance company to properly take care of our medical needs? who makes these "predetermined guidelines"? The UCP that doesn't trust doctors or science?
have you even dealt with an insurance company for a claim? I'm sure as #### not trusting them to put my need at par with their greed.
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For starters you need to separate yourself from political views, this isn't a political move even though this is the only good thing the UCP has and will probably ever do.
Details on Alberta have yet to be released but we can assume it will be similar to the Ontario model. Here is the main system.
"With Ontario no-fault insurance your insurance company will cover you and your passengers for damages and injuries from a car accident. The rationale is that you will get compensation quicker so that you can move on with your life faster.
In some cases, however, you can’t move on with your life because the injuries that you have sustained are permanent and disabling. In the case of serious injuries, you can still sue an at-fault driver for pain and suffering, loss of income not covered by your auto insurer, and other expenses not covered by your auto insurer, such as medical rehabilitation expenses."
https://tinyurl.com/Link-to-more-details
So with the current system you get a diagnosis of your injuries, usually soft tissue injuries such as whiplash by a physiotherapist, chiropractor, or doctor. There are 3 categories 1 and 2 are soft tissue and a set amount of treatments are approved, 3 involves worse injuries such as broken bones etc. So you are diagnosed as a 2 and given 21 treatments to use in basically any medicinal field like massage, acupuncture, chiro, physio and the more obscure like prolotherapy (Sugar water injections). you finish the 21 treatments and then you are either back to near pre accident condition. This is treatment under protocols now if you were not at fault you are entitled to a settlement for pain and suffering, out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but the cap on the settlement for pain in suffering as of Jan 2024 was $6,061. So 6 grand, maybe some out of pocket expenses etc they cut you a cheque for $10,000 let say. Very reasonable and no one would complain about these losses being excessive, but if you have a lawyer for this they take their cut and its not really worth their time.
BUT lawyers are resourceful and they know there must be things that would take you outside of the cap so now every injury claim has a TMJ injury, psychological injuries etc. Now you are outside of the cap and the chequebook is wide open. Now keep in mind your insurance company is the one helping you with treatments but the at fault company deals with your settlement compensation. You have been treating for a year with no progress, your neck still hurts in the morning so your company decides to send you for an independent medical exam, these are a group of doctors you submit to for a report, you don't choose the doctor its meant to be random. Doctor looks over everything and decides you don't need more treatment, your company gets the report back and cuts you off. Now your lawyer is threatening to sue your insurance company for bad faith as well as the other company for your injuries. Insurance companies don't want to go to court and will usually settle so in this scenario everyone has settled.
So lets recap in scenario 1 you got paid out $10,000 for your sore neck (In this scenario not assuming injuries don't get worse) and the whole process was over in a few months.
Scenario 2 the whole injury claim from both sides has cost 10x as much, you are going to get more money though lets say $30,000 plus out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but lawyers fees and other fees jumped the total cost paid out to over $100,000.
Times are tough and who wouldn't want $30,000, your whole claim now for one accident including damages to vehicles and everything else is going to run about $200,000.00.
Now this is your first accident, you have been paying premiums for 20 years so its not fair that your premiums and everyone else go up but that 20 years of premiums covered maybe $50,000 of this one claim. Insurance is a big pot of money that we all pay into so there is enough when you need it but your one "minor" injury accident just wiped out 20 years of premiums of your own and more. The pot of money isn't allowed to go lower so everyone now needs to make up the difference but insurance companies aren't allowed to raise premiums so now what do they do?
This is a very basic take on this from a non insurance person but I assure you its very accurate. I would never advocate taking away peoples rights to monetary compensation for serious injuries and the new system does not do that it just removes the ability for minor injury costs to be inflated out of control.
Edit: I also want to add this scenario assumes you are alone in your vehicle, lets add 3 or 4 more people and you can see where this is going and this is an insured person that went into this with no intentions of taking advantage of the system now lets add people that do take advantage and have fraudulent accident/injuries.