ONTARIO
DEFENDS INSURANCE DELAY |
|
|
|
The Ontario government is
defending a delay in cutting auto insurance rates, blaming an administrative
backlog in processing insurance company rate filings. |
|
The Liberals said Monday all
new rates will be approved by July 15 -- three months after the April 15 date
they initially set for lower rates to take effect. |
|
''It will take some time for
people to see those, but already as of April 15 people are seeing decreases in
their rates, and we're continuing to work to bring in other reforms so we can
continue to see rates go down,'' said Diane Flanagan, spokeswoman for Finance
Minister Greg Sorbara, who is on vacation. |
|
When the Ontario government was
sworn in last Oct. 23, Premier Dalton McGuinty immediately froze insurance
rates for 90 days, promising that rates would fall on average by 10 per cent
when insurers filed new rates on Jan. 23 as the government required. |
|
But that was the first time all
of the province's 61 insurance companies filed rate changes at once, which
resulted in a mass of paperwork, and many of the filings were complex, Flanagan
said. |
|
''Some of the filings were more
complicated than the Financial Services Commission of Ontario expected,'' she
said. |
|
More staff were hired through
an actuarial firm to process the documents, Flanagan added. |
|
Rate decreases averaging about
10 per cent were approved April 15 by the government for firms representing 55
per cent of Ontario's auto insurance market. |
However, the remaining 45 per
cent of the market won't get approval to drop rates until July 15. Approval
must be granted before customers of those companies see rate decreases, and
only when they get their renewals.
|
|
|
ONTARIO
DEFENDS INSURANCE DELAY |
|
|
|
The Ontario government is
defending a delay in cutting auto insurance rates, blaming an administrative
backlog in processing insurance company rate filings. |
|
The Liberals said Monday all
new rates will be approved by July 15 -- three months after the April 15 date
they initially set for lower rates to take effect. |
|
''It will take some time for
people to see those, but already as of April 15 people are seeing decreases in
their rates, and we're continuing to work to bring in other reforms so we can
continue to see rates go down,'' said Diane Flanagan, spokeswoman for Finance
Minister Greg Sorbara, who is on vacation. |
|
When the Ontario government was
sworn in last Oct. 23, Premier Dalton McGuinty immediately froze insurance
rates for 90 days, promising that rates would fall on average by 10 per cent
when insurers filed new rates on Jan. 23 as the government required. |
|
But that was the first time all
of the province's 61 insurance companies filed rate changes at once, which resulted
in a mass of paperwork, and many of the filings were complex, Flanagan said. |
|
''Some of the filings were more
complicated than the Financial Services Commission of Ontario expected,'' she
said. |
|
More staff were hired through
an actuarial firm to process the documents, Flanagan added. |
|
Rate decreases averaging about
10 per cent were approved April 15 by the government for firms representing 55
per cent of Ontario's auto insurance market. |
However, the remaining 45 per
cent of the market won't get approval to drop rates until July 15. Approval
must be granted before customers of those companies see rate decreases, and
only when they get their renewals.
|
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