A bumpy road or a dead end ahead for ICBC competition
Posted June 11, 2019 1:31 pm.
Last Updated June 11, 2019 2:14 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Insurance Bureau of Canada is continuing its push to get ICBC and British Columbia to open up car insurance in the province to competition.
Aaron Sutherland, IBC’s Pacific Vice-President, is heading to Kelowna to urge MLAs on a budget committee to rethink the current strategy.
“We shouldn’t be looking at half measures here. We need to be looking at the full solution,” he says. “Whose interest are we serving and what is the end goal here?”
He says it should be both basic and optional insurance, adding he knows the provincial appetite isn’t there but is still urging them to rethink their approach.
On the heels of ICBC announcing rate changes earlier this year, the IBC released a report showing the changes put B.C. drivers on par with Alberta as far as payouts and benefits but paying a lot more – sometimes as much as 50 per cent.
ICBC disputed the report saying the insurance bureau was comparing the products equally when it’s really a comparison between apples and oranges.
RELATED: B.C. drivers getting short end of the stick when it comes to insurance: report
“If the end goal is to improve the finances of a Crown Corporation that’s one thing, but we should be relentlessly focusing on what is best for drivers in this province and what is best for taxpayers.” And Sutherland says if it’s supposed to be keeping taxpayer and driver costs down – the current approach isn’t working.
“It doesn’t mean we have to get rid of ICBC, we simply have to open them to competition and give drivers that choice so if they don’t like the price they’re paying or the service they’re receiving, they can take their business elsewhere.”
Sutherland says the biggest hurdle for other insurers – even with optional insurance – is that ICBC won’t share claim and crash data vital to assessing driver risk. He’s speaking to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services this week.
