A Toronto injury lawyer is warning Ontario drivers not to put the wrong address on their car insurance applications to reduce premiums because the consequences are not worth it.
Earlier this month, Davin Tamber, partner at Mississauga-based law firm Brar Tamber, posted a TikTok warning Brampton residents not to falsify their address on insurance forms. He emphasized that insurance companies will deny claims if the information is found to be false.
@torontoinjurylawyer Driving better also helps #brampton #lawyer #insurance #fyp ♬ original sound – Toronto Injury Lawyer
Tamber points out an example of a client whose vehicle was totaled and valued at $15,000. Since she lied about her address, her insurance company refused to pay the claim. He said.
“Did she save on insurance premiums throughout the year? Maybe five, six hundred dollars. Is she now out of pocket $15,000? Yeah. Sucks to suck. A lawyer is not going to be able to help you. It’s not worth it. Stop being stupid,” he said in his video, posted on Nov. 13.
Tamber says car insurance prices in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have risen drastically over recent years mainly due to high population density. As a result, more drivers on the road leads to more accidents and insurance claims, causing a spike in insurance prices.
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A spokesperson at RATESDOTCA, an online marketplace for insurance and financial services, agrees that regardless of the country, large and populous cities will tend to have high payouts and claims.
“…Large urban centers, for example, typically have higher costs of living, higher claims payouts, and also more frequency of claims because more people travelling, you know, rush hour traffic and the implications of that,” Insurance Expert and Licensed Insurance Broker Daniel Ivans said to Now Toronto on Wednesday.
“Usually what you’re going to find is in larger urban dwellings, there’s going to be higher propensity to claim, also more expensive claims, and because of that, you’ll often see higher rates,” he added.
CONSEQUENCES OF ADDRESS MISREPRESENTATION
Due to high insurance costs, some drivers are resorting to changing their address to save money. Tamber defines this practice “address misrepresentation,” which can lead to several legal consequences, including denied claims and policy cancellation.
“They’re changing their address for insurance purposes to locations that attract reduced insurance premiums. Common locations include St. Catharines, London, and Barrie. They may have a friend or relative who resides in one of these locations and claim that they also reside there,” Tambar explained via email to Now Toronto on Thursday.
“If you are injured in an accident, address misrepresentation will also affect your claim for “accident benefits”, which provides medical and financial support to injured individuals,” he said, adding that drivers would be prohibited from claiming an income replacement benefit, which would otherwise compensate them if they were employed at the time of their accident and their injuries prevented them from working.
Tamber noted that at least five per cent of his injured clients misrepresent their address to insurance companies. He warned that insurance companies have extensive resources to detect fraud, including special task forces and private investigators.
“When you make a claim after a car accident, there are certain red flags that they look for, including address misrepresentation. Let’s take for example an individual whose insurance address is in London, but gets into an accident in Brampton and discloses to the insurance company that their workplace is in Brampton. Red flag,” Tamber said.
“The insurance adjuster will immediately appoint a claims investigator whose sole job is to verify whether this individual in fact lives in London. They’ll request a variety of corroborative documentation, including the property lease agreement, utility bills, bank statements, and phone records. They may even go as far as hiring a private investigator to visit the address in London,” he continued.
Ivans and Tamber highly advise drivers to stay honest about their insurance applications to protect themselves in emergencies and to avoid legal issues.
“The whole point of having insurance is you want to know that if something sudden, unexpected happens, it’s not going to be life altering, at least from a financial perspective. And the reason that we get insurance is to have peace of mind, knowing that when the unexpected happens, everything is going to be OK,” Ivans said.
“The challenge is if somebody says, for example, puts themselves in a position where their policy could be cancelled because they misrepresented the facts, then any savings that they would have seen by doing that are automatically wiped out by the fact that they’re losing a ton of money on the back end in terms of a potential claim being denied,” he concluded.
