NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s call to slash auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent by year end was met with scorn by the Ontario insurance industry.

“The NDP’s math has always been wonky to begin with,” Pete Karageorgos, manager of consumer and industry relations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada (Ontario), told the Star.

He said a hit of 15 per cent could means layoffs in an industry that employs about 77,000 in Ontario.

“I don’t think she (Horwath) has thought it through,” Karageorgos said.

Horwath says the call is reasonable given that industry payouts have dropped dramatically since reforms were introduced in 2010 that sharply reduced accident benefits.

“In fact, in 2011 the value of statutory accident payouts fell by just under $2 billion, an astonishing 50 per cent reduction from 2010, but that same year Ontario’s auto insurance rates still increased by 5 per cent.

“Drivers have yet to see any real reductions in their rates,” she told reporters at Queen’s Park.

The proposed reduction was among a shopping list of things the New Democrats want the minority Liberal government to consider when the legislature resumes sitting Feb. 19, including a home-care guarantee that would see seniors receive services within five days at a cost of $30 million.

“Soon, after a long forced shutdown, MPPs will be getting back to work in the legislature and I see it as an opportunity to get some things down,” Horwath told reporters. She added she would also be recommending there be a “balanced approach” to balancing the budget.

The legislature has not sat since Oct. 15, when outgoing premier Dalton McGuinty announced his resignation and prorogued the house. Premier-designate Kathleen Wynne is replacing McGuinty.

Horwath said the government should direct the Financial Services Commission of Ontario to bring down the average auto insurance for Ontario’s 9.3 million licensed drivers by 15 per cent by the end of 2013, which the NDP estimates would cost the industry about $1 billion.

“It is a product that people have to buy if they want to drive,” she said.

Tory MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) also accused Horwath of not “having a clue what she is talking about when she sweeps her hands across in front of the cameras and says a 15-per-cent cut.”

Karageorgos said if the NDP were truly concerned about auto insurance rates it would urge the government to implement the recommendations of last November’s provincial anti-fraud task task force. According to the report, fraudulent claims ranged from $768 million to $1.56 billion dollars in 2010, and amounts to between $116 and $236 per average premium paid by Ontario drivers.

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He noted the Ontario auto insurance industry in 2011 made roughly a $233 million profit but “that follows a $1.6 billion loss in 2010 and $824 million loss in 2009.

The former Bob Rae NDP government came to power in 1990 promising to bring in public auto insurance but then backed off in 1991, arguing that it would cost too many jobs at a time when the province was bleeding jobs.

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