Challenging Insurance Evaluations In Total Loss Collisions

The Gluckstein Lawyers Class Action and Mass Tort team recently joined Nova Scotia's Wagners Law Firm in a national class action lawsuit filed against the automobile insurance industry that is aimed at rectifying inequities in the valuation of total loss collisions.

In the statement of claim filed in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, which is yet to be certified, we allege that insurance companies "systemically thumb the scale" when calculating the actual cash value (ACV) of vehicles being written off after an accident. This echoes similar litigation that is taking place in the United States. We anticipate more claims will follow here and in the U.S.

Different insurers use different programs to calculate ACV and what we allege they do is take a percentage off the price that their algorithm generates. Perhaps it is three per cent, five or seven per cent. It doesn't sound like much until you factor in the tens of thousands of vehicles written off each year