Letters to the Editor, March 10

Protecting profits

Alan Shanoff is right. Anyone providing rehabilitation to victims of auto accidents knows that fraud is being used as a smoke screen to ensure the insurance industry’s yearly profits remain in the billions of dollars. The worst fraud is being perpetrated on the backs of seriously injured accident victims by insurers systematically reducing access to reasonable and necessary rehabilitation to them. They have been cutting benefits steadily for the past number of years. How many realize that for 85% of them, access to benefits following an auto injury was reduced in September 2010 from $100,000 to $3,500 (based on the IBC’s own definition of “minor injury”)? And now the looming battle is in the denial of claims for catastrophically injured accident victims by re-defining what represents catastrophic injury. One quarter of the “expert panel” members asked to review the catastrophic definition felt that paraplegia or quadriplegia was not catastrophic enough to qualify. Ontario Liberals are about to introduce draconian changes in the catastrophic definitions. We should expect more from our political leaders. We should expect them to look out for the most seriously injured and vulnerable accident victims.

Harold Becker, MD

North York