Alberta to drop industry-wide auto rate grid pricing

Alberta is planning to scrap its industry-wide adjustment of grid prices in its auto insurance product, according to Dennis Gartner, the province’s assistant deputy minister of pensions, insurance and financial institutions.

The industry-wide adjustment applies only to the province’s grid pricing.

In place of the industry-wide adjustment, the government is contemplating some kind of file-and-approve system, including some kind of benchmark to help insurers determine whether they must make simplified or full filings.

Gartner made his comments during his slide presentation at the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s regulatory symposium in October.

Gartner described the province’s practice of using an industry-wide adjustment for grid prices only as something the insurance industry “really doesn’t support.”

He said the proposed change was motivated by the results of a premium regulation review that Alberta concluded earlier this year. The review was to help monitor the effects of the province’s auto reforms in 2004, when the rate grid for auto insurance was first introduced.