ICBC

[RustyCrayon]

Ridiculous! Get ready for another rate increase...
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#217383

[vinnied]

yup. time for them to give up there money swindling monopoly and go private.

[RustyCrayon]

yup. time for them to give up there money swindling monopoly and go private.

I agree!
It costs me twice as much for car insurance in BC than it did in Alberta and Ontario.

[Dwjack]

Perhaps having the city's of Kelowna and West Kelowna, (and like towns and cities) actually clear the streets of ice and snow in real time rather than waiting for days in hope that it will melt would help with this situation. I watch in horror the whole winter at unessesary serious accidents caused by the lack of road maintenance. Having moved here from Manitoba seven years ago, I can attest with 100% certainty that snow and ice clearing here in Kelowna and surrounding areas is a joke compared to where I moved from. I have not once seen snow hauled away from a side street, or any effort made to address the situation as it occurs.
This is in no way to criticize the hard work of those who work for the city and province who are actually doing the work!
Rather it is a kick in the *bleep* to those who sit blindly in offices drafting up unrealistic budgets that fail to address changing climate conditions. What I see when I look outside is snow clearing handed off to the private contractor who threw together the lowest bid, with little oversight after the fact to see that the work gets done as required in the contract.
I have little doubt that the contractors pass on the bargain to their workers in the form of more work and longer hours for less pay.
On another more summerly note in the quest to lower the accident rate, who exactly thought up having Campbell and Sneena roads merge onto the south end of the William R Bennett Bridge with no accomadating merge lane on the bridge?
Having traffic in the right lane going downhill into a left turn onto the bridge come to a stop to let traffic merge in, causes traffic to attempt to shift to the left lane causing that lane to then come to a stop. Instant traffic jam and accidents! All the autobody shops in the area's wet dream come true!
It's such a no brainer that no engineer in his right mind could conceive of such an insane design, so it would lead me to suspect it was designed by political interests!
Bottom line is lets stop patching holes and fix the streets! ICBC's problems aren't going to fixed by a rate increase every year. They're going to be fixed by investing money into infrastructure in rapidly growing places like Kelowna where 5 years from now at the current rate of traffic flow increase, traffic will not flow!

[the truth]

great points

[the truth]

yup. time for them to give up there money swindling monopoly and go private.

100% correct

[LongHaul]

Mike Smyth's column today in The Province raises some interesting points. The legal profession is not going to like one of the possible fixes. If this fix is proposed, which would bring BC in line with insurance in other provinces, look for all out opposition by the legal profession.
The 1.2 billion in "dividends" siphoned off by previous BC Governments has come back to haunt us.

Some extracts and the link to the column follows:

“ICBC’s year-end loss is now projected to hit $1.3 billion,” says a private briefing note prepared for Attorney General David Eby. “Now, B.C. drivers are looking at a rate hike of at least $400 more in their premiums by next year unless we take immediate action to keep rates more affordable.”

The New Democrats are slamming the Liberals for not acting on recommendations contained in a 2014 report by consultants Ernst and Young.

The report called on the government to impose a cap on large court-ordered financial awards paid to victims who suffer “minor” soft-tissue injuries like whiplash in auto crashes. British Columbia is the only province in Canada where such awards are still unlimited.

But the Liberal government stripped the controversial recommendation out of the report before passing it on to ICBC.

“The response from government was, ‘We’re not prepared to consider that,’” former Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong told Postmedia. “There was no point presenting it as an option.”

The note also slams the Liberals for taking more than $1.2 billion out of ICBC’s accounts and transferring the “excess capital” into government coffers.

http://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-shocking-massive-losses-revealed-at-icbc-huge-rate-hikes-feared

[hobbyguy]

Mike Smyth's column today in The Province raises some interesting points. The legal profession is not going to like one of the possible fixes. If this fix is proposed, which would bring BC in line with insurance in other provinces, look for all out opposition by the legal profession.
The 1.2 billion in "dividends" siphoned off by previous BC Governments has come back to haunt us.

Some extracts and the link to the column follows:

“ICBC’s year-end loss is now projected to hit $1.3 billion,” says a private briefing note prepared for Attorney General David Eby. “Now, B.C. drivers are looking at a rate hike of at least $400 more in their premiums by next year unless we take immediate action to keep rates more affordable.”

The New Democrats are slamming the Liberals for not acting on recommendations contained in a 2014 report by consultants Ernst and Young.

The report called on the government to impose a cap on large court-ordered financial awards paid to victims who suffer “minor” soft-tissue injuries like whiplash in auto crashes. British Columbia is the only province in Canada where such awards are still unlimited.

But the Liberal government stripped the controversial recommendation out of the report before passing it on to ICBC.

“The response from government was, ‘We’re not prepared to consider that,’” former Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong told Postmedia. “There was no point presenting it as an option.”

The note also slams the Liberals for taking more than $1.2 billion out of ICBC’s accounts and transferring the “excess capital” into government coffers.

http://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-shocking-massive-losses-revealed-at-icbc-huge-rate-hikes-feared

Don't forget the NDP also just recently rejected the "fix" of doing something about the rapidly escalating soft tissue injury claims and stuff. We are now the only province without a cap on such awards - and that's the "fix" that has been adopted everywhere else, private or public.

And don't forget that SGI (Saskatchewan's public provider) provides a LOT of insurance in other provinces that are "private" - so in essence a lot of other Canadian drivers are subsidizing rates in Saskatchewan... but not here. Is that because of the lack of the aforementioned cap? Don't know.

[seewood]

Don't forget the NDP also just recently rejected the "fix" of doing something about the rapidly escalating soft tissue injury claims and stuff. We are now the only province without a cap on such awards - and that's the "fix" that has been adopted everywhere else, private or public.

Eby being a lawyer, does not want to annoy any lawyer friends to a point he will be relegated to the law societies equivalent of the penalty box. I'm sure he wouldn't like having a beer in the cloak room by himself.
He knows limiting the payouts will be popular with everyone except lawyers but will lessen ICBC's shortfalls

[flamingfingers]

^^
Keith Baldrey Retweeted

Richard Zussman
‏
Verified account

@richardzussman
7h7 hours ago

ICBC has posted a nearly $1 billion loss in the first 9 months of the fiscal year. NDP are clearly dealing with a massive mess handed over from the previous government. #BCpoli

[Gone_Fishin]

Look at that, after 8 months under the NDP, our public insurer has RECORD losses! Complete and utter failure by John Horgan and the NDP!

[flamingfingers]

removed

[flamingfingers]

^^

Editorial: ICBC report was fiddled
Times Colonist
JANUARY 27, 2018 12:56 AM


The B.C. Liberals have some explaining to do. They fiddled a report on ICBC and buried recommendations that might have helped fix the problems at the Crown auto insurer.

While the Liberals will, no doubt, grasp at flimsy excuses, British Columbians should not be fooled. The previous government hid important recommendations while the corporation’s financial situation got steadily worse.

The Liberals were notorious for pillaging ICBC and B.C. Hydro for “dividends” that went into the province’s general revenues while the corporations’ debt ballooned, but concealing the report’s recommendations is something else again.

The recommendations won’t sit well with some people, but changes have to be made to save ICBC from failing. The B.C. Liberals avoided telling British Columbians about those potentially controversial reforms because they were fixated on keeping rates low to curry favour with voters, as they drained off excess capital.

Read the rest:

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/ed ... 1.23156697

[Merry]

It costs me twice as much for car insurance in BC than it did in Alberta and Ontario.

That's because both those provinces have limits on payouts for minor injuries. Something we should implement here in BC, because the majority of ICBC's losses are due to legal fees related to trivial claims. IF ICBC was abolished and we had totally private insurance, limits on such claims would be imposed immediately.

I've been driving for over 40 years, and am tired of paying overly high premiums just so some folks can try to make a "profit" when they suffer a minor injury. Insurance following minor injuries should reimburse for actual costs and that's all. Pain and suffering claims should be limited to the more serious injuries.

[Cactusflower]

After reading the above links from the Province and the Times Colonist, I'm surprised that any of the 'old guard' had the nerve to throw their hats in the leadership ring. They should immediately step down and let the two 'fresh faces' try to salvage what's left of the BC Liberal coalition. This ICBC debacle is just the worst of many the BCLP has left for the BCNDP to clean up.