Tow truck operators in Nova Scotia recently made application to the Minister of Finance and the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance to have regulatory or legislative change that would enforce reform on insurance companies to cover all motor vehicle accidents under liability clauses of consumer insurance policies.
While government has been slow to respond, stakeholders imply their industries cannot support such an idea because they have concern of a public outcry. They suggest, such authority would force the insurance industry to increase premiums for consumers and feel such expenditure should not be spread among all consumers of insurance in a given province. An insurance claims expert says, it’s not possible to cover the removal of motor vehicles from accidents under liability clauses of insurance policies because such clauses only cover the insured where damage has occurred to property that is not owned by the vehicle owner.
We argue the cost to restore property damaged by a vehicle owner is a direct cost to the property owner as our services are part of the restoration and property damage cleanup. If a car comes through your front yard and tears down your fence the response of the insurance industry is basically we’re liable for the damage to the fence but cannot be accountable for present or future harm to your land as a result of a vehicle being left on your lawn. They don’t consider it to be part of the property restoration or part of the debris removal to restore the property. At this time there appears to be no consideration of liability by insurers towards the property owner if a vehicle remains on their land or the fact that it may cause present or future harm by jeopardizing the safety of the public.
In 2004 two actions were commenced in the British Columbia Courts asking the courts to determine if the existence of debris on crown land from a motor vehicle accident constituted property damage for the purpose of auto insurance. On both cases the courts ruled yes and the ICBC had to pay for debris removal.
Tow operators in Nova Scotia say public outcry can come about in many different forms and directions and the expense to keep public roadways safe and clear of obstruction should not be done at the expense of tow operators. People who buy insurance products are no different than us. Nobody likes to pay more for something than they really feel they should pay and nobody likes to buy something they feel they really don’t need.
One must consider the public outcry should towing and recovery companies across Canada form a collation and put a stop to removing accident vehicles from accident sites where vehicles don’t have proper insurance coverage. Public outcry will be when people such as land owners and government cannot appraise, restore or repair their property because towing companies are going to say the hell with you, pay up front or drive away. Public outcry will be when roadways remain blocked and people don’t have a thruway to get where they have to go on time. Public outcry will be when water ways come contaminated from vehicle debris and leaking fluids that it causes harm to the public and our water systems. Public outcry will be when secondary collisions take place and the cost of insurance claims triple resulting in even higher insurance premiums that will reflect on all of us.
The reaction of stakeholders on how they perceive our responsibilities and services at accident sites and our request for regulatory reform was what we expected. The insurance industry can be a fairly competitive industry and like many other industries they are often seeking different means to keep their cost down to support better pricing strategies for consumers.
It became evident throughout discussions the importance for the towing and insurance industries to develop a means of communication and continue to meet in the future so we are able to expand a better understanding of each others industries.
Like a lot of you I have spent my entire life growing up in the towing and recovery industry. For many years I firmly believed if our company responded to an accident and there was no collision coverage that we had to absorb the cost of cleaning up our roadways including the legal and environmental process to properly dispose of unclaimed vehicles under useless motor vehicle lien legislation. I wasn’t only trained to do this because my father told me so. I believed it because it was a policy practiced for decades by many of our peers and enforced by many levels of government such as; police, Registrar of Motor Vehicles, Department of Transportation and the insurance industry.
I now sit here with my hair getting course from turning grey and ask myself; how could I have been so naive? How could I have participated in watching our industry mature to a level where we have revenue starved bones from sweeping provincial roadways of debris and obstruction that was put there by the public in the first place? How stupid was I to even sit on a legislative government committee and walk away believing I had to accept what the government was willing to offer because the province claimed they did not have enough money in the coffers to administer a program and pay towing companies to restore government property or deal with the final disposition of unclaimed vehicles. Most importantly, they didn’t want to do it because not enough towing companies were complaining and the other provinces had no intention of correcting the problem of unclaimed vehicles sitting in impound yards in their provinces.
I am not the only towing company in Canada to ever file a law suit on the government for the cost associated with removing and impounding unclaimed vehicles. Every one of these towing companies walked away with multiple thousand dollar cheques without even seeing a court room. These cases don’t make it to court because one thing is quite clear. The roads belong to the public and the administrators and authorities of our roadways are accountable for the services they request in the protection and safety of our citizens. Therefore, the government should act responsibly and implement proper legislation that guarantees essential services such as towing companies a means to be properly paid and the cost of enforcement upon citizens should not rest with the towing company, but the provinces.
As stressed in the last issue of Tow Canada if towing companies want to see change they too must be willing to accept change. The towing industry is known to never stand up for their rights and rarely do they unite to go to bat. Again, we must recognize how critically important our industry is to preserving the safety of our citizens and our land. If we really want to advance we have to stop thinking old school and bring our level of thinking to current times and stop accepting what everybody else tells us we have to accept. When vehicles remain unclaimed we have to start serving property owners such as the provinces advising them of our outstanding invoices and their responsibility to pay us to restore their property to its pre-existing condition. Let them chase the vehicle owner. If they argue tell them you offer just as many free services as the government does. Don’t stop there -remind them the debris removed from their property remains at your ground rental facility and they should make quick arrangements to have the debris removed to prevent accumulated cost. I recently tried this theory and our company was paid within 10 days of serving the province registered notice. We were paid for all our services including a disposal fee for the debris. The owner didn’t like it, but that’s okay from years of experience I know how he feels.
This article was written by Heather Llewellyn
