What does "no fault" insurance mean?

In Ontario we have a "no fault" insurance system, which understandably leads people to believe that no one is assigned fault in an accident - whereas in reality someone is always deemed to be "at-fault". In fact, the law requires insurance companies to assign a percentage of fault to each of the drivers involved in the accident, from 0% - 100%.

In practical terms, what "no-fault" insurance refers to is the question of which insurance company is responsible for compensating those involved in the accident. Under our no-fault insurance, each party is compensated by their own insurance company, regardless of who is at fault for the accident. This is in contrast with provinces that operate under "tort law" where all parties seeking compensation must deal with the at-fault driver's insurance company.

Our insurance system would have been better called "Regardless of Fault".

Clicke here for an interesting discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of no-fault insurance http://tinyurl.com/4c2hkd