Insurance Blogs hosted by Canadian Underwriter
Insurance Blogs hosted by Canadian Underwriter
Using the family car to drive for Uber carries the potential for serious consequences in terms of inadequate insurance protection. Until the legal issues surrounding Uber’s business model are resolved, it doesn’t appear likely the industry will come up with a solution.
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The Court of Appeal for Ontario has held that a hospital can be sued (in a proposed class action) for a privacy breach.
In Hopkins v. Kay, the class plaintiff alleged that her records as a patient at the Peterborough Regional Heath Centre were improperly accessed. She based her claim on the common law tort of intrusion upon seclusion, set out in Jones v. Tsige.
The hospital brought a Rule 21 motion to dismiss the claim on the ground that the Personal Health Information Protection Act (“PHIPA”) is an exhaustive code that ousts the jurisdiction of the Superior Court to entertain any common law claim for invasion of privacy rights in relation to patient records.
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Joseph Campisi, a Toronto area personal injury laywer has launched a constitutional challenge to Bill 15.
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Over the years I have been involved in a few insurer studies regarding the cost of mistakes. The most obvious, to an underwriter, is the cost of re-issuing policy documents processed in error. No one publishes these statistics (too embarrassing),…
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I noticed an interesting section at the end of a recent bulletin issued by FSCO regarding recent regulation changes that I reviewed in a recent post. Thrown in with the announcement of regulatory changes is a discussion on mileage expenses by health care providers.
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Changes will always take place in any industry, but changes in Ontario auto insurance have not solved problems – instead they have created them.
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Several new auto insurance regulations have now been approved by the Ontario Cabinet.
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In the recently released decision of Equitable Trust Co. v. The Portage La Prairie Mutual Insurance Co., 2014onsc4767, Ontario Superior Court Justice Stewart affirmed the generally held view that an insured mortgagee is entitled to recover the outstanding balance owing…
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Uber and similar ride-sharing services aren’t going anywhere. Consumers like these new services and that’s why there are using them.
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The auto insurance focus of this year’s Ontario Economic Statement is consumer protection.
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Checking my email today — amid the many “Happy Cyber Security Awareness Month” messages — was a notification from my bank. Like so many other shoppers, my credit card information was obtained “by unauthorized individuals” when I shopped at a…
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The Superior Court has upheld an arbitrator’s decision, finding that loss transfer is subject to a two-year rolling limitation period. In Economical v. Zurich, the claimant was driving a car and was involved in a motor vehicle accident with a…
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The IBC has now published the standard HCAI reports for the first half of 2014. The document provides over 75 pages of aggregate data collected by HCAI going back to 2011. HCAI was made mandatory on February 1, 2011.
The standard reports are published on an “accident half year” basis. In accident half year statistics, the experience of all claims with accident dates in the same accident half year is grouped together. The accident half years are defined as calendar half years, with January to June being the first half and July to December being the second half for each of the stated years.
The chart below breaks down the percentage of claimants receiving treatment per injury group. The data is further broken down by accident half year and the percentages are based on claims transactions between the accident date and June 30, 2014.
The injury group sizes have remained consistent since the HCAI began collecting data. The data suggests that there doesn’t appear to be any obvious erosion of the minor injury definition. At least 70% of claimants receiving treatment are being diagnosed under strains and sprains which fall under the minor injury definition. The diagnosis does change over time when you look at previous periods in a chart I posted earlier this year. There has been some drifting from strains and sprains to WAD III (PN) and third degree tears (FD). For example, for the first half of 2013, the SS injury group dropped 2.2% between the two reports while the PN and FD groups increased by 1.0% and 0.8%. This may reflect disputed claims and the time it takes to resolve disputes.
Cars changed the world and our cities in the 20th Century by freeing people of the limitations of their geography. People now have the freedom to live, work, shop and travel almost anywhere they want. The car industry has caused suburbs to grow, and made the development of road and highway systems necessary.
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