CANADIANS DEPRIVED OF RIGHT TO FAIR CAR INSURANCE

By Partap Dua

Many Canadians are deprived of their basic right to fair car insurance. I am talking about cities like Brampton and also about those drivers who are unfairly treated due to fault of others.

Insurance companies have hyped that Brampton is more prone to accidents, hence everyone living in Brampton is categorized as high risk. This is wrong assumption. How can you punish everyone living in Brampton? Are insurance companies forcing people to move out of Brampton just because of insurance? An average car insurance in Brampton is around $300 as compared to $80-120 in rest of GTA and a family with 4 cars spends $1200-1500 a month just in car insurance and perhaps $3000-3500 in monthly mortgage, property tax and utilities. That is around $4,000-5,000 a month in shelter and car insurance costs. This forces people to borrow from credit lines and cards just to get by in life.

We believe that insurance is punitive for residents of Brampton. The insurance companies cannot transfer risk of risky drivers to safe drivers. If young people indulge in accidents, penalize them, not everyone else. And generally insurance companies should not be allowed to jack up rates of everyone in a geographical area just because of carelessness of bad drivers. Otherwise, there would be no incentive left for safe drivers at all.

We also believe that people should not have to live and drive in fear of an accident. First accident forgiveness should be available as a matter of right to all safe drivers after age 28. After all no safe driver commits an accident voluntarily and is many times a victim of circumstances. The accidents just happen because of circumstances or for fault of others and sometimes faults are attributed unfairly.

The blatant increase in premiums is allowed to insurance companies in provinces like Ontario because of strong insurance lobby groups and also because the provincial governments make a killing in PST on high premiums. Higher the insurance premium, higher the PST for the government.

The worst victims are small business owners in trucking industry if their address is in Brampton because of higher costs of insuring trucks. Why should they be penalized just because they have a Brampton Address?

We believe that insurance sector be operated as a non-profit sector rather than as a for-profit sector. At the least, the federal government needs to step in and create federal vehicle insurance for safe drivers of cities like Brampton and safe drivers all other jurisdictions who are being milked by insurance companies. And it is doable if there is true resolve.

Our party believes fair insurance is basic right of everyone and we will rock the parliament on this issue.