Insurance Industry Increase their Earnings

OTLA (Ontario Trial Lawyers Association) posted an article on December 20th, 2013, titled, 'Insurers Get an Early Present; Injured Victims Get Another Lump of Coal.' This article was authored by Maia Bent and it outlined the changes made on December 11, 2013, to the SABS (Ontario Regulation 347/13).

There were changes made to weekly benefits (which was minimal), however, the other two changes (attendant care benefits and pre-existing medical conditions) are potentially much more significant and serious.

This article explained,

"The new attendant care provisions reverse the law as established by the Court of Appeal in Henry v. Gore. In that case the Court held that "economic loss" is a threshold requirement for payment of an attendant care benefit. The Court noted that "economic loss" was not a defined term and it declined to provide an explanation. The insurer in that case argued that insurers risk facing claims for attendant care based on minimal monetary loss. The Regulation's new subsection 19(3) addresses this concern to the exclusion of any other perspective except the insurance industry's profit motive."

Furthermore, it summarized;

"That if an attendant care provider is not acting in the course of his or her ordinary employment, the attendant care benefit payable shall not exceed the amount of the economic loss sustained while, and as a direct result, of providing the attendant care. In the future, care providers will have to either quit their jobs in order to be paid fairly for the care they are providing, or agree to do so for free, or next to nothing. While there is no easy solution to this horrible situation forced on accident victims by this government, consideration should now be given to involving professional caregivers whenever attendant care is required, so as to lessen the burden already faced by the victims and their social support system."

It is apparent with this change that the Insurance Industry will increase their earnings.

If you would like to read more of this article please visit OTLA's blog article - http://otlablog.com/insurers-get-an-early-present-injured-victims-get-another-lump-of-coal/

REFERENCES:

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r13347

https://otlablog.com/insurers-get-an-early-present-injured-victims-get-another-lump-of-coal/