Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: My question is for the Premier. Tomorrow, the insurance brokers are coming to Queen’s Park. I’ve met, as all members have, with constituents, brokers and Insurance Bureau of Canada individuals. The concern is that postal codes and/or credit scoring are being used to deny people insurance and/or for determining insurance. For those who don’t understand, that depends on how much credit you owe on your credit cards or how many mortgages you have for credit scoring.

This is not allowed for auto insurance, but what’s taking place is that individuals who are applying for household insurance are asked to provide their credit score to determine household insurance, and when they deny access to insurance company providers to their household insurance are being denied auto insurance. What are you going to do to ensure that you can protect Ontarians from credit scoring determining people’s insurance rates?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I thank the honourable member for his question. One of the things I want to make clear is that credit information is not permitted for use in rating and underwriting auto insurance. FSCO, the Financial Services Commission of Ontario, sent a bulletin on February 10 this year outlining acceptable practices for insurers who quote on auto insurance in Ontario.

My colleague also makes reference to another issue, and that is, whether or not insurance companies in the province of Ontario are using credit scoring to grant household insurance. What FSCO is doing at the present is conducting a survey, as are their counterparts I think pretty well in all the other provinces and territories at the same time so we get a better understanding of what’s happening in the marketplace with a view to then considering what, if any, action would be necessary in that regard.

Mr. Jerry J. Ouellette: Right now, as you mentioned, there are 39 recommendations under consideration by FSCO’s five-year review for auto insurance. There is a gap under current legislation that doesn’t allow the superintendent responsible for insuring people in the province of Ontario to ensure that the rules are followed. Recommendation number 7 says that FSCO needs stronger authority to prohibit objectionable quoting practices and it’s being ignored.

Premier, what is it that you and your government are going to do to ensure that the policies in the province are not based on credit scoring?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: I think we’ve made some real progress during the course of the past five years when it comes to insurance generally speaking, particularly in the area of auto where rates have dropped over 7% since 2003, which has been a real boon to consumers.

Again, my honourable colleague raises a real issue about the use of credit scoring in the granting of insurance. I know that’s something that FSCO and the Minister of Finance continue to consider. What I do undertake to my honourable colleague is to get back to him if there are any more specifics I can provide in this regard, given the absence of the Minister of Finance today.