I was recently speaking with my insurance broker, and she mentioned that some insurance companies are working to reduce their involvement in automobile insurance while continuing to focus on other types of insurance. Why might that be?

Lawyers I’ve spoken to who represent people injured from a collision have told me that as long as treatment is being rendered, the court is satisfied. What that treatment is however, is irrelevant.

If this is indeed the case, then why in this age of public need for evidence do we not have more research being conducted on accident recovery? This field costs our economy tremendously, not only from an insurance perspective, but also from the multitudes of suffering people that may be taking longer to heal than necessary. It appears as though there needs to be some social pressure to encourage funding bodies to work towards determining the best treatments to help patients recover after being injured in a motor vehicle collision.

What needs to change?

As a clinician and a researcher, I have consulted with many patients that were involved in past collisions and never recovered, long after their settlements were complete. This model appears to monetize injuries and trade them for financial compensation, regardless of patient recovery. This is a tragedy.

On a snowy day in Calgary, there can literally be hundreds of injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents. If less than half of these people recover, then we continue to have a population that is not functioning at its most productive, and that hurts all of us.

Managing the injury properly, or avoiding it entirely, is always the best option. At our clinic, we regularly help people suffering from the long term effects of motor vehicle collisions who have slipped through the cracks. Most often, we see that there were things that these people could have done differently during early injury management to have had a different result.

What can you do?

Unfortunately, there is also a lack of awareness of what to do proactively to avoid injury in the first place. It’s impossible to prevent all injuries, but there is one very simple thing you can do that can make a big difference—set your car headrest properly and know what to do if you are about to be in a low-speed, rear-impact collision.



Dr. Jeff Scholten
NUCCA Chiropractor 
The Vital Posture™ Clinic
Calgary, Canada


When you have a complicated neck issue that isn’t responding to conservative care or isn’t stabilizing as well as you would like, let us help you try to find sustainable relief from your injury.