Minutes of Meeting
Attendees
Insurer Representatives:
Mike De la Haye Wawanesa
Cassandra Phillips AXA
Mavis Haws Dominion of Canada
Ron Bouwmeister CICMA
Brenda Fung CGU
Adam Fox Belair Direct Insurance
Margaret Morrison CGU
Mary Wright Royal & SunAlliance
FSCO-DRG Margaret Orlander FSCO
Ann Bythell FSCO
Barbara Dudzinski FSCO
Asfaw Seife FSCO
The Dispute Resolution Group Companies Forum (Companies Forum)- includes representatives from auto insurance companies dealing with disputes before the Commission involving motor vehicle accident claims and statutory accident benefits. It consults with the Dispute Resolution Group of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario on issues relating to the dispute resolution system.
Opening:
The regular meeting of the FSCO Companies Forum was called to order at 10am on October 17.
- Approval of Minutes
The minutes of the previous meeting were not available for this meeting. Mary will undertake to get a copy to everyone by the next meeting so that they can be posted to the FSCO web-site.
- Mediation
FSCO is actively recruiting at the moment, they are looking for personnel in mediation, arbitration and support services.
FSCO is presently looking for 7 mediators to complete the compliment and to normalize present contracts.
- Mediation Statistics
Presently the objective is to increase the percentage of applications that are complete when filed.
FSCO is attempting to increase the percentage of mediations that are conducted face to face, the goal moving forward from today is 10-12% up from 6-8% presently.
An attempt was made by the group to discern what is meant by an unsupervised paralegal. In general we understood it to be a non-lawyer who is not working under the supervision of a lawyer.
Barbara undertook to run additional numbers that include the percentages for paralegal and service providers in future copies of this document (i.e. for the next meeting statistics) Barbara also agreed to provide percentages for face to face mediations and their success and failure rates.
- Arbitration & Appeals
Under the received applications section, we were told that the statistics were not completely accurate, they will be fixed in the future.
Appeals statistics are manually fed and the statistics are not accurate here either, they will also be fixed in the future.
Plans are in place to deal with the backlog of appeals decisions
These reports will no longer be labeled "DRAFT", from now on, this will be the agreed and accepted form for quarterly reports. There was consensus around the table for this.
- Auto Reform Update
Margaret Orlander from the FSCO policy group was present to explain and discuss the status of the auto reform process.
A package went out on September 19, 2002 to stakeholders, everyone at the meeting also received a copy from the chair, via email.
Highlights
– They are proposals, not confirmed yet that any of the parts will be included in the final version of whatever form, (Bill or Amendments) Auto Reform takes.
A Bill will be introduced to the Provincial Parliament during the fall session of this year.
Proposals include:
- Accountability and cost savings
- Addressing the Paralegal Issue & tightening up the SABS (i.e. S.24 assessments to be listed in the SABS with their max costs)
- Agreement between the IBC and Health Care providers that claimants will be treated consistently – modality and cost to be pre-approved
- Settlement regulation changes
i.e. No Med/Rehab full and final agreement until at least 6 months into the claim.
- Paralegal regulations to include possible E&O and or code of conduct for non-lawyers
- Possibility for arbitrators to include costs for frivolous and vexatious arbitrations and appeals.
- DACs to become prima face evidence
- Dispute Resolution Services Operational Processes
Barbara Dudzinski gave an overall strategy statement for DRG to deal with various issues, following preliminary comments from Ann Bythell.
The DRS is looking to deal with the immediate pressures resulting from changes in the process brought on by the $500 fee and paralegal issues.
Discussion occurred on systemic vs. individual abuses and FSCO's openness in attempting to stop them, i.e. the enforcement bulletin.
The DRS is working with the Policy Group on new standards of conduct for representatives.
Discussion occurred on how FSCO can deal with paralegals convicted of insurance fraud.
Smart Forms and E-filing of Mediation and Arbitration applications and responses discussed. The DRS would like to get this project underway in the next 12 months.
- Companies Forum Mandate & Structure
Purpose and Functions – listed and reviewed from the Terms of Reference Chair is coming up soon for election; Mary will check exact dates and report back to the group.
Mary will also forward a new letter of introduction to Ontario Auto Insurers that this group is in existence and looking for participation from the industry
- Mediation Fee Discussion
This issue was re-tabled and further discussed.
Discussion centered around "stopgap" options until the new Auto reform process is put into effect.
Issue of mediation fees and their timing was discussed, a request was made that FSCO team leaders be given a small amount of flexibility and "gray-area" when evaluating mediation applications that are submitted and have settled at the time of assignment to a mediator, but FSCO is not notified until after the fact. Barbara and Ann agreed to look at the possibility, and discuss it.
One option was to look at the files on a case by case basis and allow team leaders or Barbara to issue a withdrawal letter if the file can be shown to be an abuse of process or that the FSCO process had no part of the settlement.
- New Business
A new case was brought to the attention of the group, Riverfront v. CPRA (Tax Department) deals with payment of GST to Medical providers, including s.24 exams, IME's, defense medicals, and DAC's.
Adjournment:
Meeting was adjourned at 12:30pm by the chair. The next two meetings will be at 10am on December 5, 2002 and March 6, 2003, at FSCO.
Minutes submitted by: Adam Fox, Belair Direct Insurance
Financial Services Commission of Ontario