Another ICBC rate hike coming?

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/icbc-wants-to-hike-basic-rates-1.3735758

ICBC is asking or a 4.9% increase in premiums. Last year rates were raised 5.5%. ICBC is citing a rising number of claims and increased legal costs as the reason for this hike.

As a lawyer, with an admittedly biased opinion on the matter, my position has always been that claims and legal costs are related to ICBC’s own behaviour and desire to litigate files. In other words, if ICBC were to make better offers earlier, lawyers would settle files earlier and people would be less likely to hire lawyers in the first place. ICBC in an attempt to drive down settlements has been making lower offers. Unintended effects of that policy were an increase in lawyer retention rates and litigation expenses.

ICBC has also cited increasing vehicle repair costs as another reason for the proposed rate hike:

http://www.icbc.com/autoplan/costs/Pages/rate-pressures.aspx

Although, total number of motor vehicle accidents may be increasing, the rate per capita should not be. As the population of British Columbia grows, you would expect there to be more accidents in proportion with population growth. However, the costs of repairing vehicles and added injury claims due to population growth should be offset by proportionally more people paying insurance to ICBC. This does not seem to be the case, which suggests that the shortfalls may be the result of ICBC’s own operation.

 

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