St. John –
Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion of their country and arrived in Newfoundland have been asked to pay thousands of dollars in car insurance, and defenders say the high rates are hampering refugees’ efforts to settle in the countryside.
Canadian Press reviewed two car insurance offers offered to Ukrainian refugees in St. John’s, one for $ 5,592 a year and the other for $ 8,288 a year. Meanwhile, the average annual rate in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2020 is just over $ 1,200, according to the Statistics Agency for General Insurance.
Adilya Dragan, in contact with many of the 166 Ukrainian refugees who recently landed in the province, says high rates are paramount for many who have chosen to settle in the St. John area.
“It’s really a lot,” Dragan, who is from Russia, said in an interview Tuesday. Most have found jobs that earn between $ 15 and $ 20 an hour, making high insurance rates completely unaffordable, she added.
Newfoundland and Labrador led the country in bringing Ukrainians to Canada. The province set up an office in Warsaw, Poland, in March to help those fleeing Russian attacks, and it was the first province to lease a plane carrying refugees to Canada. This flight landed on May 9 in St. John’s.
Dragan said some Ukrainians – especially those who cannot speak English – have only managed to find work outside the city center. Others have found work in St. John’s, but cannot find housing in the region’s cramped rental market, she said. The vacancy rate in St. John’s was 3.1% in October 2021, down 7.5% a year earlier, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Dragan drives a 31-year-old Ukrainian to work every weekday because he can’t afford insurance, she said. He works as a construction worker at Conception Bay South, about 30 miles southwest of St. John’s.
Monica Abdelkader, director of settlement services at the Association for New Canadians in the province, says she agrees that high insurance rates are putting pressure on the need for affordable housing in the St. John area. Abdelkader, like Dragan, notes that there are many single mothers in the group who will also have to pay for summer camps and day care as schools open for the summer.
She says high insurance rates are not unique to Ukrainian refugees.
“This is a problem that has long plagued newcomers,” Abdelkader said in an interview Tuesday. “A lot of work has been done in this area, investigations have been done in the past and nothing has really changed.
Refugees arrive without Canadian driver’s licenses from countries where it may be difficult or impossible to obtain driving licenses and other documents, she said, adding that costs usually fall after the first 90 days in the country and then again after a year.
But in the meantime, Abdelkader said, newcomers start from scratch and often find a solution on their own. In the case of Ukrainians in Newfoundland and Labrador, some employers have increased the salaries of refugees to help them pay for insurance until rates become more manageable, she added.
Immigration Minister Gary Byrne says insurance companies are not obligated by the province or its utility council to charge such high rates.
“The government is urging our province’s insurance industry to do what the whole province has to do to come out and offer solutions, not use it as an opportunity to increase revenue,” Byrne said in an interview Tuesday.
The province is developing a way to obtain driver’s licenses from Newfoundland and Labrador for refugees holding licenses in Ukraine, and the announcement is expected to be announced in the coming days, he added.
Amanda Dean, vice president of the Atlantic Ocean for Canada’s insurance bureau, said it could be “useful.”
She encouraged Ukrainians and insurance brokers to call the bureau to express their concerns. Ukrainians also need to inform brokers why some documents or driving stories may be missing, Dean said, so brokers can then explain the situation to insurers – who ultimately set prices.
“We are having an awful lot of talk right now on this very topic and others,” Dean said in an interview Tuesday. “This is something new and we absolutely want to work with brokers and the government.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 8, 2022.
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