{"id":8164,"date":"2014-09-17T15:43:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T19:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8164"},"modified":"2014-09-24T13:35:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T17:35:00","slug":"caps-should-be-looked-at-in-how-much-towns-insurers-can-cover-in-a-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/caps-should-be-looked-at-in-how-much-towns-insurers-can-cover-in-a-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Caps should be looked at in how much Town\u2019s insurers can cover in a lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

With insurance premiums involving ongoing lawsuits with current and former members of Council coming in just under $1 million over the last seven years, it now might be time to look at capping just how much support individuals can get from Town insurers.<\/p>\n

So argued members at last week\u2019s Council meeting following a presentation from BFL Canada on why Aurora\u2019s insurance premiums have been on a swift incline. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can conclude there were specific claims that are driving up your premium to a certain extent,\u201d said BFL\u2019s Vice President Chris SInardo in his presentation last week. \u201cIt is a bit of an intangible, but if I do the math and think on it, and use my experience working with municipalities for the last 35 years, I came to the conclusion that about 35 per cent of your liability premium would have been saved had your losses been significantly less than they are. It just makes sense that if you\u2019re asking the insurance company to pay, or has paid, $265,000, but you\u2019re only putting $177,000 into it, they are losing money and they are going to beep raising.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the presentation, BFL crunched the numbers on many lawsuits still outstanding involving the Town which have garnered significant headlines over the past five years \u2013 totalling $998,934.<\/p>\n

The largest hit to the Town\u2019s insurance premiums comes from Councillor Evelyn Buck\u2019s lawsuit against former Aurora mayor Phyllis Morris, incumbent Councillors Wendy Gaertner and John Gallo, as well as former councillors Stephen Granger, Evelina MacEachern and Al Wilson. The defendants in this case are covered by Aurora\u2019s insurance premiums as it was launched against them while duly elected officials. <\/p>\n

Councillor Buck\u2019s multimillion dollar lawsuit claims her reputation was damaged by the defendants stemming from a 2009 statement from Councillors published in local newspapers, relating to Councillor Buck and what was then Aurora\u2019s Code of Conduct.<\/p>\n

So far, the lawsuit has racked up $845,000 on the Town\u2019s insurance bill.<\/p>\n

Two lawsuits involving Ms. Morris also racked up a heavy bill. Although the report doesn\u2019t break down the particulars of each case, both the lawsuit unsuccessfully launched by Aurora resident George Hervey alleging Ms. Morris violated the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act in participating in discussions that led to her 2010 defamation lawsuit against three local bloggers, as well as Ms. Morris\u2019 subsequent lawsuit against the Town of Aurora for her own costs related to the lawsuit, have continued to increase, currently standing at $153,932. <\/p>\n

Although they couldn\u2019t get into the specifics of the case in the open Council session, Councillors Buck and Gallo questioned broader details relating to the case they are embroiled in. Councillor Buck, for instance, suggested \u201call the reasons\u201d for the insurance premiums going \u201csky high\u201d were not being brought out, while Councillor Gallo questioned the impact on insurance premiums if the defendants being covered by the Town\u2019s insurance were ultimately successful in their defence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any one of these that are before the courts [and] the Town were to be successful and recover funds, how would that affect insurance premiums?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n

Mr. Sinardo said premiums could be reduced by up to 30 per cent. <\/p>\n

For those not tangled up in lawsuits, they questioned what could be done to prevent matters in the future from accumulating some substantial numbers. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince these costs are ultimately being borne by the taxpayer, are there not limits?\u201d asked Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cWe have some that are approaching a significant [sum] and theoretically could keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

A similar view was put out by Mayor Geoffrey Dawe, who said he heard comments over the previous week characterising the numbers as \u201can obscene amount of money\u201d being paid out, questioning who is \u201cwatching the piggy bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has gone on for a number of years and if it was to go on for another four, five, or six years, would the claims just keep racking up?\u201d he asked. \u201cThis is all going to come back and hit our tax rate. I don\u2019t understand why, generally speaking, we can\u2019t have capping. In my opinion, if there was a capping mechanism there, people would be more prone to settle. There would be far more impetus to settle and move on, as opposed to letting this thing drag on. It might help focus people.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With insurance premiums involving ongoing lawsuits with current and former members of Council coming in just under $1 million over the last seven years, it now might be time to look at capping just how much support individuals can get from Town insurers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-27G","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 03:02:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}