A Commentary by Doug Draper
The late Niagara MPP Mel Swart – a champion for fairer auto insurance rates in Ontario – may agree with me with I say three cheers for the province’s Auditor General Jim McCarter.
The late Niagara MPP Mel Swart was a champion for fairer auto insurance rates.
In his latest annual report, released at Queen’s Park this past Monday, McCarter criticized the eight-year-old Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty for not doing enough during that time to keep we, the people of this province, from being mugged in our pocket book when it comes to the soaring costs of such essentials as energy, health care and, last but not lease, auto insurance.
There are so many important things McCarter addresses in his report but I’m going to focus on auto insurance – an issue I’ve been taken to task for by some members of the insurance industry for arguing that for many years over the past decade and a half, drivers have been hit with premium increases well above the rate of inflation while the industry has has enjoyed record profits.
McCarter’s report confirms what many of us have suspected and sometimes read in the business pages of newspapers for years – that drivers in Ontario are paying the highest auto insurance in the country, thanks in no small part to a 12-percent-per-year guarantee of profits for insurance companies the province has allowed to be imbedded in our premiums.
The cost of auto insurance has skyrocketed, added the auditor, despite the fact that over the past decade, the number of people killed or injured on Ontario’s roads has gone down by 25 percent. So go figure, or as McCarter put it to Queen’s Park reporters this week, “the increasing cost of (insurance) claims cannot be explained by common sense things.”
Not that common sense has had much to do with the way one provincial government after another has addressed consumers’ concerns over insurance rates over the years. I think back to the late 1980s when then-Welland riding MPP Mel Swart led a campaign for public auto insurance, continued by his successor in the seat Peter Kormos, to at least take profiteering out of the equation. Swart’s campaign was so popular that it helped get an NDP led by Bob Rae elected to government in 1990. Yet once in power, Rae caved to the interests private insurance companies and swept his party’s promise to introduce public auto insurance in Ontario under the carpet. The Mike Harris spent eight years leaving the private insurance industry more or less unleashed and the McGuinty government hasn’t done much more than slap a ceiling on how much a person can claim for less serious injuries they suffer in an accident unless, of course, they want to pay an even higher premium.
Mel Swart's NDP successor Peter Kormos took up the cause.
McCarter says in his report that action needs to be taken by the province to address the soaring cost of auto insurance and to investigate any and all possible cases of fraud when it comes to claims for injuries to individuals and repairs to vehicles.
Going back to so many of the concerns Mel Swart raised about auto insurance costs more than two decades ago, thank God we have an auditor general in the province who is willing to broach the cost burden on insurance customers again.
Ontario’s finance minister, Dwight Duncan, said the government will address them but we who have borne the brunt of escalating insurance costs should flood our MPPs with letters and calls to make sure the government responds effectively to drive those costs down. Since the McGuinty government was reduced to a minority in last October’s provincial election, maybe there is a chance it will listen to our call.
On this issue and others, I find it interested that we often get appointed individuals like McCarter and the province’s ombudsman Andre Marin speaking more strongly for our interests than we do many of our elected politicians.
(Niagara at Large invites you to share your views below. Please remember that we only post comments by people willing to share their full names.)
Niagara At Large 
I recall trying to get abstainer’s insurance years ago. I have never been a drinker of any intoxicant, still am not. I was told I couldn’t get it because I drove a sports car!!!!! I also pay more because I’m single although I’ve been driving for 40+ years without an accident (knock wood). OMG, I’m single! The despair! I think I’ll drive into a tree! What nonsense! They have so many ploys to circumvent rate reductions that I think they stay up night concocting them. When you see a city skyline what are the biggest, most impressive buildings? Insurance cos and banks. Poor sods.
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What a wondeful comment, Linda McKellar. Insurance, not just car insurance, is a racket, just that. The stories I could tell ….. but yours is wonderful. Well spoken.
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The Canadian way the politicians know well !
“”””” bitch heartily about the problem – Nothing happens “”””
“”””” bitch a little less about the problem – Still nothing happens “””””
“”””” bitch even less about the problem – again nothing happens “”””
Finally accept the the problem and re elect the idiots that wont do a thing to solve the problem – Who is to blame here ????????
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Those to blame are the people who are not politically and socially active.
How many people even voted this year in either election? Then, like you say….bitch, bitch, bitch! People do not inform themselves of events and vote for someone because the candidate’s grandfather bought their grandfather a beer in 1934. If we’re apathetic the big dudes win. We need our own Egypt or Libya. That would scare a few politicians. Maybe Occupy Wall Street is a start but it needs to get more organized with specific goals achieved one at a time.
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I remember when Bob Rae had a majority government in Ontario…and Christel Haeck was our MPP … great days…but then they didn’t do anything about insurance back then either!
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Okay Doug & everyone else … you have really hit one of my pet subjects!
I lived in BC when the NDP government there brought in government auto insurance. Sure, there were some teething problems, but the system worked. So much so that successive ultra-right wing governments have not undone it!
As a matter of fact, a few months before I moved to Ontario, ICBC (Insurance Corporation of BC) had to impose a big increase in premiums. When I arrived in Ontario, I had to switch to private insurance and my premiums were even higher!
Eighteen months ago, I cancelled the insurance on a 1996 Chevy Cavalier that I had not driven in over a year. The insurance company immediately jacked up my partner’s insurance rates! They said I was now the “second driver” on her car so she had to pay more! She switched to another company (CUMIS) which we believe to be a part of the Credit Union movement. The result was that her rates dropped massively (more than $150/month on home and car for better coverage). Six months ago, I bought myself a used pickup truck and was able to get full, comprehensive coverage on a 2002 truck for the same price I was paying for absolute legal minimum on the previous, older, smaller, less valuable vehicle!
I have said it before, I am best described as a “Red Tory” when it comes to politics.
But on the issue of auto insurance, we must eliminate the profit motive!
I was extremely disappointed when Bob Rae backed down from his promise … but now we know why he did – he is just another “professional politician” who has never done an honest day’s work in his life.
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The Occupy Movement is very powerful. It is referenced often in mainstream media, and it is creating “talking points”. Long overdue public discussions are now taking place, and politicians are taking note.
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