The Ontario auditor general should investigate auto insurance rates

Ontario’s auditor general should investigate auto insurance rates after a new study found that Ontarians are being grossly over-charged.

A new study showing Ontarians were likely over-charged for auto insurance by $840 million, in one year alone, is sufficient cause for a fresh investigation by the province’s auditor general.

It’s no secret that Ontario residents are forced to pay a lot for auto insurance — we face rates that are 45 per cent higher than in Alberta, and about double what they are in the Maritimes. Hard-pressed consumers deserve more assurance that they aren’t being gouged.

Having the auditor general’s office dig into every aspect of this situation would either restore public confidence in the existing system or expose problems sorely in need of reform. The office did examine auto insurance regulatory oversight in 2011, but an updated and deeper probe is in order.

New concern over the fairness of the status quo was triggered last week by an analysis of the auto insurance industry done by two professors at York University’s Schulich School of Business, Fred Lazar and Eli Prisman.

They concluded that Ontario consumers may have overpaid for auto insurance by as much as $4 billion between 2001 and 2013, with excess fees amounting to $840 million in 2013 alone...More.