Dear Premier McGuinty,

On behalf of over 500 drivers who have written to me, I would like to bring an important matter about the Insurance Act to your attention.

The Fault Determination Rules, within the Insurance Act, have not been changed since 1990. There has been considerable abuse in the insurance industry by the "Partially At-Fault" ruling, at the expense of thousands of drivers.

The problem is the "Partially At-Fault" designation holds as much weight as being "Completely At-Fault, in an accident, when it comes a driver's insurance rate.

In other words, when both drivers are deemed "At-Fault" or "Partially At-Fault" both drivers' rates increase after this one collision. Both insurance companies benefit from this rate increase, leaving both drivers to face rate increases of thousands of dollars, or worse be subject to cancellation. This happened specifically to my parents. You can read about this in Romanov Report 36.

When accidents occur on private property, such as parking lots, the insurance industry is notorious for laying the fault on both drivers. Parking lot accidents usually create very little damage with relatively small claim payouts, yet a driver's rate would skyrocket as if they wrote off a Bentley.

The "Partially At-Fault" rule needs to be eliminated and replaced with a "Mostly At-Fault" ruling, or at least a graduated scale of fault needs to be put in place. If the driver were found to be only 10% at-fault, he would not suffer the rate increase as though they were 100% at-fault, as is the situation now.

The Fault Determination Rules desperately need updating to reflect the high cost of today's insurance when accidents occur.

I own an online, unbiased insurance rate comparison service (InsuranceHotline.com) and also send out an e-newsletter (called "The Romanov Report"), every two weeks.

On behalf of over 500 drivers who have written to me, I would like to request that you carefully read through what your constituents have to say about the "Partially At-Fault" rule. I also kindly request that Mr. Bob Christie, responsible for overseeing the insurance industry in Ontario, answers them.

I would strongly urge your government to eliminate, or modify, the "Partially At-Fault"' rule in the "Fault Determination Rules" of the Insurance Act.

I would like to know what I need to do to see this action proceed.

Sincerely,

Lee Romanov

Founder - InsuranceHotline.com

Cc: Bob Christie, CEO, Financial Services Commission of Ontario