The Ontario auto insurance mess: This is what Wynne and Sousa are tolerating on our behalf. Some representatives!

BY ALAN SHANOFF, TORONTO SUN

It’s not easy achieving a perfect state of ineptitude where so many auto accident victims are maltreated by so many people and institutions. Doing so takes real effort.

Let’s start at the top with the lawmakers, the people who govern Ontario.

With the insurance industry’s lobbying efforts paying off, our lawmakers gutted no-fault benefits in 2010.

Medical and rehabilitation benefits for most victims injured in accidents saw the maximum reduced to $3,500.

That’s the lowest in the country.

For serious injuries the maximum was reduced from $100,000 to $50,000.

That’s not money going into accident victims’ pockets; it’s money used to pay for medical and rehabilitation treatments.

Never resting, our lawmakers are in the process of lowering the interest rate to 1.4% on money owed by insurance companies to accident victims.

That this might encourage insurance companies to hold onto victims’ money longer, earning higher investment returns on it, seems to have escaped the attention of our lawmakers.

But enough about them.

Lawyers have a role to play in our mess of a system [too]. More…