Auto insurance companies to cut rates by an average of 15%

April 30, 2013- Ontario will force auto insurance companies to cut rates by an average of 15%, provincial Finance Minister Charles Sousa said Tuesday.

 NDP Leader Andrea Horwath wanted a 15% reduction in auto rates within a year as one step needed to secure her support for Thursday's budget to be unveiled by Ontario's minority Liberal government.

In our judgment there is a possibility Insurance Companies are going to benefit financially from this political power play while Injured Motorists will continue to suffer from further cutbacks. Apparently,  the government's auto insurance strategy involves several initiatives to decrease costs, such as giving the Financial Services Commission of Ontario the authority to oversee and license health clinics and practitioners who invoice auto insurers. Further, Finance Minister Charles Sousa said  that, "This is a very complex issue - we recognize that we have to deal with the insurance companies, with the issues around fraud, with the clinics, with legal, with definition of catastrophic (injury), the definition, for that matter, of minor injuries," Sousa said. "And with areas in which they don't have as much issues of risk, so that folks up in Timmins, for example, shouldn't be subsidizing the cost of urban centres elsewhere in Ontario."

We need to be very afraid. The "complex issues" of rehabilitation services are not fully understood by the politicians involved, indeed.