NDP vows to lower auto insurance rates by 40% if elected in June
Horwath pledges to ban rate hikes for 18 months
Ontario’s New Democrats would lower auto insurance rates by 40 per cent if elected next month, leader Andrea Horwath said Wednesday.
Horwath said she would ban rate increases for 18 months while a commission investigates and recommends a new system.
“Within two years you will see the 40 per cent reduction in bills,” Horwath said at a campaign stop in an autobody shop in Brampton.
She said the auto insurance system is broken and that a new commission would examine all possibilities for a new system, from a public, government-run one to fully private.
“Auto insurance costs are unfair in Ontario,” Horwath said. “We’ve known this for years and years and years, we have some of the lowest accident rates in the entire country and yet we have the highest auto insurance premiums. We need to fix this and we can fix this.”
Horwath would also ban the practice of different auto insurance rates based on postal codes.
The commission would explore the no-fault insurance systems in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia and Quebec’s public and private hybrid system, she said.
Auto insurance rates would be frozen and the 40 per cent reduction would be pegged to that rate freeze, Horwath said.
The NDP would also introduce legislation to ensure the rate reductions are permanent, she said.
Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said Wednesday he is focusing on the broader issue of affordability, pointing to his “buck-a-ride” transit pledge.
“We’ll continue to look for ways to make auto insurance accessible and affordable and fair for people regardless of where they live in this province,” he said at a campaign stop in Toronto.
The Progressive Conservatives, who are seeking re-election, said in their April budget that they want to tweak auto insurance rules to allow more choice, ensure fairness and crack down on fraud.
A government-commissioned report in 2017 found that Ontario has the most expensive auto insurance premiums in Canada.
A 40 per cent reduction in rates is achievable, said David Marshall, an independent financial adviser who has consulted the province on auto insurance rates. “But it’s going to need a fundamental change in how the auto insurance policy is structured and how the benefits are administered,” he said in an interview.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada, an organization representing insurance companies, said the NDP’s proposal would not save money for drivers. “Proposals to freeze auto insurance rates and end the use of territory as a rating factor do little to address the underlying costpressures in the current system,” the organization said in a statement. “Instead, these proposals would result in drivers across the province being unfairly penalized, and forced to subsidize the cost for high risk drivers in other regions.”