Some Canadian Car / Motor Vehicle Accident Insurance Claim Resources

• I would like to compile resources for Car Accident Victims to help deal with their claims.

• In this province, there is “no-fault” really meaning it’s the victims fault for being in chronic pain. They have to deal with case workers who are poorly trained and subjected to scams meant to block their claim.
• They have to shell out of their own pocket any defense that doesn’t get to go to court, but is subject to a review committee that is, in my opinion, poorly educated as well (who else in North America uses the AMA Guide [for disability] unaltered?).
• They are also subject to disability settlements that are orcestrated by a SGI physician that in one case I saw did not give any extra for pain level or chronic pain induced depression. The poor fellow with severe back pain, obviously very depressed as well, was subjected to the AMA guide 5% disability rating for his crushed vertebra pain. The ruling physician had not seen the patient. When I tried to object, I was almost kicked out, for I was only an observer.
• If they want to object to this ruling, they would have to get an independent assessment, which in my opinion is impossible to do in this area; assessments seem to have rather an insurance company bias.
• To this end, I am complying self- help links for accident victims

Canadian Books:

1) Surviving Your Personal Injuries Claim and Litigation – a guidebook by Mary Lynch, 2003
– written with a Canadian perspective from Nova Scotia

Chapters
1- insurance disputes
2 – choosing a lawyer
3 – navigating pretrial legal system
4 – Putting a dollar figure to your losses
5- going to trial
6 – exploring alternatives to trail
7 – the aftermath: living with chronic pain

As you can see, very legal based and has some real meat in it. Was published privately and available here:

The Dalhousie Health Sciences Bookstore
5891 University Avenue
Halifax, NS B3H 1W2
phone: (902) 494-6701
fax: (902) 494-6150
email:susan.kingston@dal.ca

 link to site here
2) Surviving Whiplash by Mar Frobb MD from BC – rather basic but then, designed for patients. Has an excellent section of documenting a claim. This form can be seen free Here . Does make the point that even low impact can cause appreciable injury. Unfortunately, for a physician, it does not include references; so hard to use in a fight for a patient.
Book http://www.survivingwhiplash.com/

3 and 4) two books:
Injured Victim’s Guide to Fair Compensation

Crash Course: A Savvy Woman’s Guide to Ontario Car Accident Claims

they state “The authors, Brenda Hollingsworth and Richard Auger, are Ottawa-based personal injury lawyers who were concerned about the lack of information available to Ontario residents facing injuries from an accident.”

there link is here:
http://www.personalinjuryottawa.ca/index.asp?name=7_Costly_Misconceptions&id=56

I do not know anything about these books but they have put out a basic outline of some factors one should deal with:

Negotiating a Settlement of your Motor Vehicle Accident Case

article free here

5) 7 Deadly Sins That Could Wreck Your Injury Claim

apparentlyl free through this link:

http://www.chescrosbie.com/practice_areas/auto-accidents-and-car-wrecks.cfm

Looks like you have to register – something I have an adversion to…(and notice none of you have had to register on my site….)

6) Some “guidelines” used by Ontario – they use the WAD system of categorizing disability which I think is outdated and inaccurate

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/English/pubs/guidelines/guidelineb7-1.asp

7) Auto Accident Survivor’s Guide for British Columbia by Jill Franklin

link through:

http://www.autoaccidentsurvivorsguide.com/About_the_Author.html

I have not read.

8) List of SGI’s regulations

pdf here

9) Dirty Little Secrets of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation (MPIC) and Autopac

public forum here

10) One thing I learnt from Dr. Harold Merskey (father of the pain definition and multiple published expert on chronic pain) is that when one concludes a disability assessment, the degree of chronic depression induced by chronic pain, is introduced into the equation for canculation chronic disability – it’s a separate chapter in the AMA guide and it’s value has to be added to the physical disability score.

11) Lawyers – obviously any of the above who wrote articles above might do. Also Neil Wheeler who wrote:What Is A “Long-Term Disability Benefits” Claim?

Canadian Pain Coalition Newsletter Volume 2 Number 4 Fall 2009
By Neil P. Wheeler, Lerners LLP blog artcile here

In Regina, I have dealt with Ronald Gates and Ian Mc Kay though I presume there are many others that I just don’t know about.

12) Medical specialists – I have found great difficulty in getting an unbiased assessor. Dr. Mark Frobb, who I met at a recent Canadian Association of Orthpedic Medicine conference, does do assessments for victims (NOT insurers). He wrote above book on Surviving Whiplash. He is not a certified IME (independent medical evaluator) but has achieved expert witness status. It may only take a few weeks to see him, but It would not be free… Otherwise, I have suggested people deal with expert from the USA that have dealt on the side of patients.

13) Help groups – In Regina, we have the Coalition Against No Fault Insurance by Lorie Terry

I found a link but no website:

Link here

also in yellow pages here

She wrote Oct. 29, 2009 against SGI Here.

Some other provinces have there own coalitions.

Any suggestions for patients would be appreciated.