Ontario is cracking down on auto insurance fraud – which will benefit drivers, insurers, health care providers and all other professionals who are affected by the province’s auto insurance system.

The new Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force will investigate the scope and nature of auto insurance fraud in Ontario and make concrete recommendations to address fraud. It will focus on prevention, detection, investigation and enforcement, as well as regulatory practices and consumer education.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said, “The task force will help us determine the full scope of the problem so we can work to eliminate this form of criminal activity from the province. Our reforms plus this fighting fraud will help us further stabilize rates for drivers and, most importantly, protect the rights of accident victims. It will also ensure more premium dollars go to the treatment of accident victims.”

The Task Force Steering Committee includes a consumer advocate as well as representatives from academia, the insurance industry and the justice sector.

The committee is chaired by Fred Gorbet, the CIT chair in financial services and associate director of the financial services program at the Schulich School of Business at York University and a former federal government deputy minister of finance.

Gorbet is joined on the steering committee by George Cooke, president and chief executive officer of The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, Margaret Beare, a professor of law and sociology at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, Bob Percy, deputy chief of the Halton Regional Police, and consumer advocate James Daw, a business journalist.

The steering committee wasted no time getting to work, holding its first meetings immediately after the launch of the task force in late July.

“I’m very impressed with the experience and expertise of my fellow task force members,” said Gorbet. “I’m confident that we can work with stakeholders to define the extent of auto insurance fraud in Ontario and recommend effective ways to deal with it.”

Gorbet’s duties as chair of the steering committee will include directing research and analysis on the scope and prevention of auto insurance fraud in Ontario and other jurisdictions, leading to interim and final reports submitted by the committee.

The research commissioned by the steering committee will support the work of the task force working groups, which will assist the committee in developing its final auto insurance fraud prevention recommendations.

The working groups will consist of stakeholders and government representatives, including law enforcement personnel, insurers and insurance intermediaries, as well as regulators of various participants in the auto insurance system.

They will focus on developing collaborative approaches and solutions to specific auto insurance fraud issues. The working groups will also look at prevention, detection and enforcement, regulatory practices, and consumer engagement and education.

Announced in the 2011 Ontario Budget, the task force builds on other initiatives undertaken by the provincial government to help the auto insurance industry address fraud, including:

  • Bringing in reforms in September 2010 to combat fraud and abuse that have been undermining the auto insurance system 
  • Working with the insurance industry to use the newly established Health Claims for Auto Insurance database to detect potentially fraudulent activity, including identity theft of health care providers
  • Introducing new rules to ensure that treatments are provided to accident victims as invoiced

In late fall 2011 the Task Force Steering Committee will issue its first report, which will outline immediate action recommendations the government can take to help address fraudulent activity in the auto insurance system. A final report will be submitted to the Ontario government in the fall of 2012.

More information about the Task Force can be found on its website at www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/reformcommission/auto.html.