An unfair way to treat good drivers
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Like many of you, I have a clean driving record. My only speeding ticket was more than 40 years ago, and I have never been in a car accident in which I was at fault. As a result, I qualify for the maximum merit points and discounts each year. It saves me a few hundred bucks each year on the cost of insurance for my vehicles.
That said, I’m told that my age and (almost) spotless driving record would qualify me for even lower insurance premiums in some other provinces that allow private automobile insurance coverage. That is because Manitoba Public Insurance bases its insurance rates on the vehicle, and not the person who will be driving that vehicle.
It’s a practice that has been happening for many decades and, if the Kinew government gets its way, will soon become law in the province.

The exterior of Manitoba Public Insurance’s service centre office in Brandon. Deveryn Ross writes that MPI's method of providing insurance penalizes good drivers. (File)
As the CBC reported earlier this week, Bill 49, the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Amendment Act, if passed, will permanently enshrine the existing auto insurance rate approach. Under that scheme, premiums for each individual’s vehicle are based on the driving record of the vehicle’s owner, as opposed to the record of the person who actually drives that vehicle.
It’s a policy that seems to assume it’s the car that causes accidents, not the person behind the wheel. Does that make sense to you?
If you disagree with the practice — which may be forcing you to pay significantly more for insurance than you would under a driver-based fee scheme, such as those available in other provinces — you aren’t alone.
In 2017, the Manitoba Public Utilities Board ordered MPI to change the way it calculates insurance premiums, and it has issued three orders since then, each instructing MPI to shift toward a driver-based insurance model. Each of those orders have been ignored, however, and now the government is stepping in to formalize MPI’s misguided practices into law.
Katrine Dilay, a lawyer who represents the Manitoba branch of the Consumers’ Association of Canada and the Manitoba Seniors Equity Action Coalition, told the CBC that “When people are registering vehicles to a person who’s not actually driving the vehicle, we’re seeing distortions in the way that insurance premiums are set … The consequence is that our safest drivers — those people who are higher on the driver safety rating scale — are paying more than what their risk is to the system.”
She’s right. MPI’s current approach penalizes experienced drivers with good driving records — seniors in particular, who may not drive as much as younger drivers — while keeping insurance rates for bad and inexperienced drivers lower than they would (and should) otherwise be.
In other words, good drivers in Manitoba are being forced to subsidize bad drivers in the province and, because MPI has an auto insurance monopoly, there is nothing those good drivers can do about it. With Bill 49, the Kinew government is signalling that it agrees with that misguided approach.
Think about that for a second. An inexperienced driver or, even worse, a bad driver with a history of accidents and driving infractions can avoid costly insurance premiums by driving a car that is in the name of someone with a better driving record — a spouse or parent, for example — and good drivers will always be forced to underwrite that risk through higher premiums.
Even worse, the policy makes Manitoba roads less safe because it makes it easier for bad drivers to afford auto insurance — which means that it makes it easier for them to be driving on the roads. That puts us all at greater risk.
The minister responsible for MPI, Matt Wiebe, defends Bill 49, telling the CBC that “since the beginning of MPI, we’ve had the registered-owner model, and it works well.” He argued that basing insurance premiums on the vehicle’s owner, not the actual driver, benefits teenagers and newcomers to Canada.
“It allows them to have access to insurance and at an affordable rate,” he said.
That’s an arbitrary political decision that puts the interests of one group of Manitobans ahead of the interests of other Manitobans. It’s unfair and arguably discriminatory, but the practice will become law if Bill 49 is passed.
It doesn’t have to be this way, because there is a simple solution to this problem: End MPI’s monopoly over auto insurance, which would give Manitobans the option of purchasing private insurance. Doing so would allow good drivers to shop for lower premiums, while ensuring that bad and inexperienced drivers could still obtain affordable coverage through MPI.
That’s not going to happen, however, because it would likely result in MPI being forced to cover bad drivers without the easy cash that comes from good drivers paying too-high premiums. Such an approach would force the corporation to charge bad and inexperienced motorists higher rates or face insolvency. The Kinew government won’t let this happen, however, and that brings us back to Bill 49.
If you are opposed to what the government is planning to do via Bill 49 — if you are tired of paying more for auto insurance than you should be paying and want to stop MPI from overcharging you — call Wiebe and tell him what you think. The phone number is 800-282-8069.