Auto insurance rates to fall by 5%

[Dion]

CALGARY - Albertans will see their auto rates decrease about five per cent this year after a provincial regulator rejected calls from the insurance industry to hike premiums as much as 6.4 per cent, sources say.

The Automobile Rate Insurance Board's decision will be announced today, cutting roughly $30 on average from the price drivers pay for mandatory basic coverage.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...720/story.html

[troutman]

But lawyer Fred Kozak, who represents two women who received soft-tissue injuries in separate accidents after the insurance reforms, maintains the cap is unconstitutional.

His clients, Peari Morrow of Calgary and Brea Pederson of Edmonton, have given him the go-ahead to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to consider hearing a challenge of last month's appeal court.

[FanIn80]

How is it "constitutional" to want more than $4K for a soft tissue injury?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

How is it "constitutional" to want more than $4K for a soft tissue injury?

Whoops, I misread your post. Never mind.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

How is it "constitutional" to want more than $4K for a soft tissue injury?

Ask me if you are ever so unfortunate as to suffer a whiplash injury.

Basically, people that suffer "minor" injuries are not permitted the same access to justice as all other injury victims. This is discrimination, and we are amazed the AB Court Of Appeal did not agree.

[FanIn80]

I had a minor whiplash injury. The other guy's insurance paid for $6800 damage to my car, a rental car for 4 months, 28 chiropractic sessions... And I settled for $1K on top of that.

I didn't really see the need to ask for more. I even felt guilty just taking that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this soft-tissue cap the reason for the lower rates?

[burn_this_city]

I'm shocked rates arent going up. I would have thought the companies would need to bump premiums to cover their stock market losses this year.

[zukes]

Being in the industry, soft tissue injuries are tough. First off the symptoms are hard to quantify and therefore easy to fake. Also when legit so much depends on the individual's tolerance for pain and their activity level.

Each one is truly different.

Luckily, I am in property claims so I don't have to deal with this stuff.

[FanIn80]

That's the thing. It's like anything else in life, people will always abuse anything that is beneficial. I think I'd rather have the cap and the lower rates than a bunch of people faking their way to lottery tickets, while my rates go up every year to balance it out.

Edit: I know there are actual cases of serious whiplash... Perhaps there should be a window for these guys to go to another cap level or something. I'm just not sure how you filter out the cons.

[onetwo_threefour]

It's not that wanting more than 4000 is constitutional, it's that an arbitrary limit in some injuries but not others is unconstitutional.

Here's an example. Say you have two people in a the same car in a car accident, through whatever fluke the driver walks away with a broken arm and no other injury, the passenger has a whiplash injury. The guy with the broken arm goes to the emergency room, gets a a cast and maybe misses a day of work and playing his favorite sport for a couple of months.

The passenger has ongoing headaches, can't turn their head more than 30 degrees, has trouble sleeping for weeks, has to take significant time off work for treatments, may not be able to fully participate in recreational activities for years and so on.

According to the Alberta government, the Court can award any amount of pain and suffering damages it deems reasonable to the driver but cannot award more than 4000 to the passenger.

That is why it is unconstitutional. It fundamentally treats soft tissue injuries different than other injuries.


As for the argument of faking injuries, that is the role of the adversarial process. They're easy to fake, but not to fake well, and the insurance company has the ability to challenge the validity of the injury through the legal process. As has been shown on the other threads about this topic, the insurance industry's claims of rising payouts and costs are largely unsupported by anything other than their own press releases.

To show the even more insidious side of this, I had an insurance broker comment to me yesterday that she thought that the cap meant prole couldn't even sue anymore, they just had to take the cheque the insurer was willing to write. And she is by no means a dummy. By creating a cap on a certain kind of damages that happens to be referred to as 'general' damages, many people may not be getting proper advice about the recoverability of medical expenses, lost income, loss of earning capacity and othe things that are still eminently part of many personal unjury claims.

[fredr123]

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=54205

Plenty of information in that thread.

[FanIn80]

Ah. Now I get it. That's a valid point. Again, tho, it is a lot easier to fake whiplash than a broken bone. Maybe instead of the cap, they should come up with a better way to figure out who's faking.

The problem with that, tho, is that all the sure-fire ways are just as unconstitutional.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

That's the thing. It's like anything else in life, people will always abuse anything that is beneficial. I think I'd rather have the cap and the lower rates than a bunch of people faking their way to lottery tickets, while my rates go up every year to balance it out.

Edit: I know there are actual cases of serious whiplash... Perhaps there should be a window for these guys to go to another cap level or something. I'm just not sure how you filter out the cons.

There was lots of discussion in the other thread that there is very little proof that injuries are being faked to any signficant extent. Injury victims are examined by a multitude of doctors, and should be caught out. Insurers hire detectives to follow claimants, and take pictures of them dancing and playing tennis.

Cap on collision compensation added insult to injury
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...4-219044df206c

Really, it shouldn't be hard to weed out the scam artists. The doctor I was seeing at the time of the accident said that people who fake it are easily detectable. Since they don't know anything about anatomy, especially the nervous system, they have no clue about the cascade of symptoms, or how nerve damage over here equates to pain over there. So the symptoms they claim to have don't make sense in a way a medical text could confirm.

Besides, it takes a lot of effort to keep up a facade of being hurt for the two years it takes to reach a settlement. Few people can carry it out that long.

Post # 82:

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.

[FanIn80]

Yikes. No wonder I always feel like I'm being robbed when I renew my insurance.

[JustAnotherGuy]

I could write a long story of how abusive the insurance industry is. My ex-wife was in a car accident a few years ago. Suffered soft tissue damage and was not able to work. The things the insurance company did to make her give in and sign a settlement was criminal in my mind. Including.
1. Having a private eye follow her around as she went to her doctor's appointments. Including having this person park his vehicle in front of our house.

2. Cutting us off of the disability insurance she was on until we proved she could not work. After 9 months they finally relented on the 'courthouse' steps. They paid us the 9 months of the unpaid disability insurce. Which of course 35% went to our lawyer.

3. Sending her again and again to be tested to prove her level of physical ability. If she did not make the appointment they set up they would stop the disability insurance. Including the appointment the day after her grand mother died.

4. Sending her to 'their' doctors who would always say she is fine. Then we would have to find a neutral doctor for his evaluation. Then those would have to be evaluated by the insurance company. They never cut us off again but that was always hanging over our head. We had to pay for the neutral doctors evaluation.

Some other things that have happened because of the car accident.

1. She can no longer work. Before the accident she was making $100,000+. Now I am not sure how she makes money. We divorced a few years ago.

2. She now has a wheel-chair parking pass because her knees swell up so much when she walks. The doctor says she will probably be in a wheel-chair eventually. She is 42 years old.

3. Having friends and family asking if she is faking the injury.

4. Having friends and family saying she is lucky when the settlement finally happened. After 9 years of dealing with insurance and having all savings wiped out. The settlement is basically enough to cover medical expenses and lost wages. But of course it was rounded down based on the judges discreption. Oh, of course the lawyer takes 35%.

Oh, of course some people who have hurt their back a little will just say get over it. But when your back muscles have been ripped so bad that they won't heal maybe you will understand. Having shoulder muscles ripped so badly that one doctor asked if she was a power weight lifter because that is where he typically sees this kind of damage. Then the sleepless nights when that blood clot was found from the injuries. Fortunately the blood thiners worked.

Having her 2 year old daughter crying because mommy doesn't pick her up anymore.

I hate the people who have abused the insurance industry. I hate the insurance industry for having no heart and trying to break people into giving in. I hate the entire system. I hate that damn commercials on tv when the insurance company says they care. They do not care.