» Lawyer: New insurance regs to ding non-drivers • Spacing Toronto ...

by Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler

The insurance companies argue “consumer choice”.  Ie if you want more benefits you can pay an increased premium. Unfortunately that does  not help those without car insurance policies and who elect to travel by a safer and less environmentally intrusive mode of transportation.  Many students, seniors, and lower income households do not have vehicles in the city.  They do not have car insurance policies.  They do not cause injuries. But they do get doored, hit, and stuck down all the time! I also suspect it will continue for some time. The Government however did do something right. They restored access to claim compensation when someone is killed by a negligent driver.  They announced today the revocation of the $15,000 deductible. Many cyclist advocated push to change this.  This is a good thing for many  who lose a loved one.  For instances to give some context, when Ryan Carriere was killed cycling on Queen by a negligent truck driver (four Halloweens ago), his family had $90,000 in deductibles taken away from them. Despite successfully proving it was the truck drivers fault and being successful in their law suit. This was simply taken away as a deductible.

Not quite sure I get the logic of this. And I find it kind of rich that McLeish Orlando, Personal Injury Lawyers, are warning us that the “issue will be overshadowed by the lawyers”.

There’s also the possibility that this will open up the market - and it is hoped, not the requirement - for cyclists, pedestrians and public transit users to have insurance.

I had bike insurance in the UK that had a clause for additional injury cover.

Comment by scruss

What you wrote is slightly misleading because it doesn’t give proper context. Claims by non-drivers are extremely high in Ontario (according to several newspaper articles in Toronto) and from a user’s standpoint, claims from very minor injuries are being milked by non-drivers and by people/companies who provide care services. At the same time, the claims limit for non-drivers are higher here in Ontario than any other province in Canada and significantly higher in some categories. So this announcement simply re-adjusts the maximum payouts or claims people can make in Ontario compared to the rest of Canada (albeit the re-adjusted maximum claims are still very high/generous in Ontario).

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