Ontario auto changes could be ‘slow to implement’
Ontario may have a new auto insurance regulator, but don’t expect conditions in that market to improve overnight, A.M. Best Company Inc. suggested in a report released Thursday.
_________________________________________________________________
When You Can’t Get Out of Bed with Your Insurer – Our current government’s “care not cash” proposal
The history of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS) can’t be recited here in detail but suffice to say that since its inception each government has once or multiple times made changes to the SABS.
_______________________________________________________________
Brian Goldfinger on the misfortune of two or more accidents (Ontario)
In the world of Plaintiff personal injury law, it’s not uncommon for cases to last a year, to multiple years. Depending on the severity of the injury, the complexity of the case, the number of parties involved in a case, along with the willingness (or lack thereof) of the parties to settle, personal injury cases can take a lot of time.
_______________________________________________________________
No Jurisdiction at the LAT for Arbitration Proceedings: Commenced but not Completed at FSCO
The transition of the forum for Statutory Accident Benefits disputes from the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (“FSCO”) to the Licence Appeal Tribunal (the “LAT”), effective April 1, 2016, was not as seamless as anticipated and continues to be the subject matter of ongoing adjudication. Transitional issues involve the impact of the 90-day period post-mediation, limitation periods and the jurisdiction of the LAT to hear disputes commenced at FSCO but not completed at FSCO.
_______________________________________________________________
The place where insurers are seeking double-digit auto rate increases
Auto insurers asking for double-digit increases from New Brunswick’s regulator could face some hard questions during hearings this fall.
_______________________________________________________________
“Troublesome” ICBC Surveillance Practices Come Under the Judicial Microscope
In the recent case (Williams v. Sekhon) the Plaintiff sustained serious and disabling injuries in a 2013 collision that the Defendant accepted fault for. In the defence of the claim the Defendants insurer, ICBC, conducted a ‘troublesome‘ amount of surveillance into the Plaintiff’s life. The Plaintiff requested that special costs be awarded for this.
______________________________________________________________
Request for Public Comments on the New Proposed Definition of Pain
______________________________________________________________
Caregiver & Patient Support Survey
_____________________________________________________________
State Farm Mutual Insurance Company v. Kulaveerasingam, 2019 ONSC 5223 (CanLII), http://canlii.ca/t/j2b8s
[4] The respondent was in receipt of $400 per week in income replacement benefits (IRB) from the applicant after a ruling of arbitrator Pressman of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) of February 6, 2015. Subsequently, the respondent received notification on November 24, 2015 of her eligibility for CPP benefits, and she in turn notified the applicant on December 21, 2015.
[5] On January 26, 2016, February 16, 2016, and March 8, 2016 the applicant sent to the respondent “Explanation of Benefits (OCF-9)” notice letters, seeking repayment of IRB monies as a result of CPP payments that she had retroactively received.
[6] At the time, respondent’s counsel took exception to the notice provided to the respondent by each of those letters for various reasons. The respondent continues to dispute their validity. The parties agree that an invalid notice disentitles the applicant from clawing back overpayments received by the respondent. The applicant nevertheless resorted to s. 287 of the Insurance Act to start deducting amounts as repayment from its ongoing IRB payments to the respondent, even though that provision required the consent of the respondent or a favourable variation order from the FSCO to make such deductions, neither of which the applicant had received.
[15] In our view, on a reasonableness standard, Director’s Delegate Lee was entitled on the evidence, the authorities and in this legislative framework to find each of the applicant’s notices to the respondent to be insufficient and invalid, and to distinguish the ruling in Marianayagam. We cannot say that these determinations were unreasonable, particularly given that the repeated errors in three different notice letters from the applicant were made even as counsel for the respondent repeatedly sought to correct the applicant. No significant errors should have remained by the third letter, and it does not render the remaining errors “substantially correct” that they were less egregious than the ones that came before.