Opinion US Car Insurer Could Bring down Canada's Privacy Law

this is a sticky situation, but all it is really going to is adjust the law that is in place.

I hope the law stands. Companies keep too much of our information without us knowing. And what they do with it, they do without our consent. That needed to be stopped.

"Like a good voyeur, State Farm is there."

Insurance companies are scum bags, they won't even tell what was done to your car if you need repairs done under insurance. The irony is, they'll share your information with anyone BUT you.
Example, several years ago, my wife was t-boned. Fortunately she wasn't hurt, but the car was. My insurance policy specifically stated that NEW parts were to be used when affecting repairs, not just fix the old parts.
When I got my car back, the window wouldn't work. Well it did but it was a real bitch getting it to roll down and even harder to roll it back up.
I was somewhat pissed so I called my insurance company to see what was done to my car. Their response: "We're not obligated to tell you". I took the car to MY mechanic. He pulled the door apart and informed me that there were very few new parts and that most of the damage had just been repaired, and rather shoddily to boot. When I called my insurance company again with this new information, I was once again told that they are under no obligation to release any information on work done to MY car.
I then informed them that I wasn't obligated to keep them as an insurer either and cancelled my policy then and there. When they informed me that they would charge me a penalty, I informed them that if they want to be dicks, I'll just have my mechanic sign an affidavit that new parts were used ONLY where repairs couldn't be made and I'd be suing them for misrepresenting their service and breach of contract.
Considering I was paying extra to have NEW parts, not repair the damaged ones, they didn't want that. By the way, guess what insurance company it was
State Farm/Allstate Insurance: WORST insurance company EVER!!!

PIPEDA has had other challenges and should survive this one too. State Farm can go screw themselves IMHO.

Allstate and State Farm are two separate, unrelated companies (besides having "state" in the name). So which one was it?

Allstate and State Farm are two separate, unrelated companies (besides having "state" in the name). So which one was it?

Sorry, it was Allstate during that incident. Always thought one was a subsidiary of the other for some reason, and not just cuz they have "state" in their name.
I'll still vote Allstate as the worst though.
Although none of the ones I've dealt with are worth the sweat off my balls.

So, did you ever speak to the body shop that did the work and asked them what was put in your vehicle?

So, did you ever speak to the body shop that did the work and asked them what was put in your vehicle?
Yep. Guess what they told me? It was an insurance job and they weren't obligated to tell me either
Like I said, I took it to MY mechanic and he informed me most of the guts in the door had just been repaired, not replaced.

Very odd. I see you're in Ontario. If you wish to pursue this I would recommend filing a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Ombudsman. They're a part of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and deal with consumer complaints of insurance companies. Website below.

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/English/PUBS/ ... -05_96.asp

Very odd. I see you're in Ontario. If you wish to pursue this I would recommend filing a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Ombudsman. They're a part of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and deal with consumer complaints of insurance companies. Website below.

http://www.fsco.gov.on.ca/English/PUBS/ ... -05_96.asp
Thanks for the info, but this was over 20 years ago. It was actually my first experience dealing with an insurance company after an accident.

As for the original point to this topic however, I think State Farm should do what it wants, that is if they want to lose a huge portion, if not all their business in Canada.
Actually, what I do with ANY contract I enter into, is make sure a proviso is added that my personal info is NOT to be traded, sold, or otherwise given to ANYBODY for any reason.
If they don't wanna agree to that proviso, then alarm bells should be screaming in your head.

There are problems with relying on the market to fix the situation.

1) It's difficult to assume that consumers will remember this news story years down the road when they're shopping for new insurance. People have busy lives and can't amass encyclopedic knoweldge about the benefits and deficiencies of every single good and service on the market. Consumer awareness is a pretty weak weapon in the face of all the advertising propaganda that companies put out there on a daily basis, not to mention all the promotional offers and teaser rates that lure in people desperate to save money.

2) With insurance, be it health, auto, or otherwise, people often don't know they're being screwed until it's too late to do anything about it. After all, insurance is something you pay for every month but rarely use; it's not like cable tv where you can use for a week or a month and then switch if you don't like it. Insurance brochures give you a very broad overview of what's covered and what is not, but when it comes to filing a claim, you will quickly find that the document describing exact coverage is thicker than a phone book and goes into excrutiating detail and specifics on parts, technology, circumstances, etc and that document is probably something that you're not entitled to look at. If you call your insurer and try to get them to give you an estimate for a speficic repair, they'll usually tell you that you will have to submit a claim so they can do a detailed analysis, but at that point, its too late to switch if you don't like the coverage.

3)The insurance industry, like many other industries, operates like an oligopoly. This means they all have similar business practices and standards, either through deliberate collaboration, simple immitation, or because the market has just evolved in a way that encourages that kind of behaviour across all companies. If company A is doing something that is making or saving money, company B, C and D are probably going to take notice and start doing the same thing and this becomes and industry standard. So there probably is no alternative to the situation described, even if one does switch carriers. If some companies actually were to differentiate on something like this, one would expect that they'd be putting it front and centre in their marketing campaign (since differentiating would probably be of no advantage to them other than as a marketing gimmick) but I haven't seen any ads saying "come to Allstate, where we don't give your info to private investigators who spy on you".

Well, nice post but you neglected one thing. One doesn't require encyclopedic knoweldge to understand that identity theft and the trade of personal information among companies is rampant. If yer too busy to take a few minutes to make sure a proviso is added to any contract to protect your personal information, then don't complain when yer inundated with junk mail and phone solicitations.