Public to fix insurance fraud, when govt can’t
Ontario’s Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force wants public comments on some potential recommendations to help fight fraud within the industry.
Announced in the 2011 Ontario Budget, the task force is mandated to make recommendations to address fraud. It was to focus on prevention, detection, investigation and enforcement, as well as regulatory practices and consumer education.
The Task Force Steering Committee includes representatives from the insurance industry, academia and the justice sector, as well as a consumer advocate.
Final recommendations are scheduled for fall 2012, but potential recommendations were identified in a recent task force update to generate public input.
Our own view is: if the authorities really want to fix the issue of skyrocketing insurance premiums, they know what needs to be done. But perhaps it isn’t possible for them to do what needs to be done — which is, among other things, to rein in a whole industry sub-culture that’s developed around the auto insurance industry.
The issue has however snowballed into a major political headache, ever since some community groups raised the topic at the previous provincial elections — and continue to do so. So the authorities have to be seen to be doing something.
So they’re now trying to be seen to be doing something.
For the record, public input on the task force status report and its potential recommendations can be submitted to the Task Force by emailing autoinsurance@ontario.ca
Let’s hope it works. But can we, the public, fix what the government doesn’t seem to be able to?
