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With Newfoundland and Labrador’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) set to hold hearings on the province’s auto insurance review, a group of lawyers is demanding for more time to allow it to weigh in on the issue.
The lawyer group, dubbed “Insult to Injury,” believes that the province’s plan to put a cap on pain and suffering payments would take away the rights of collision victims to fair compensation.
Valerie Hynes, a partner at Roebothan McKay Marshall who represents Insult to Injury, argued that they have not been given enough time to properly argue their case as the PUB hearings on June 04 close in.
Hynes told CBC News that the group had just received the last of eight major insurance system reports by PUB and Service NL on April 30 – she said that there is not enough time to review the reports, let alone line up experts from the group to participate in the PUB hearings that begin June 04.
“We have to fly people in,” she said. “We need further details.”
PUB and Service NL started their review of the province’s auto insurance industry on April 09, examining the region’s insurance rates.
Insult to Injury has filed an application with the province’s appeals court and has to wait for a date before it can speak with a judge.
PUB has stated that it has to file its final report to the provincial government by June 30. Hynes is worried that the board is rushing things, since it only has a week or two to finish its report once the hearings end.
“This could impact everybody, whether you agree with us or not,” she warned. “This cap that they are proposing or considering, or changing the deductible coming or doing these different things — this could affect everyone in Newfoundland.”
