ICBC giving out one-time rebate cheques

Fewer cars on B.C. roads last year meant fewer crashes. After saving $600 million in 2020, ICBC is giving rebates to drivers. Travis Prasad tells us how much cash back to expect, and why critics say it’s not enough.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – ICBC is giving out one-time rebate cheques averaging about $190 to people who had car insurance last year.

“This will affect all of those who had policies between April 1 and Sept. 30 last year,” said Premier John Horgan Tuesday.

Horgan says the public insurer has about $600 million in savings, due to fewer crashes leading to lower claim costs. The province says a higher-than-expected income was “partly offset” by decreased revenue due to lapsed and cancelled policies.


“ICBC will be returning net savings of about $600 million directly to drivers. This will be in the form of a one-time rebate cheque, averaging about $190 per policy holder — the largest single give-back to policy holders in Canada through COVID-19,” he said.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says the drivers’ rebate amount will be “based on a portion of what they paid for coverage during that period.”

“Exceptions include customers with short-term, storage or distance-based policies, whose premiums already reflect lower usage. The Basic insurance portion of the rebate is subject to approval by the BC Utilities Commission,” he added.

As to why it took until now to issue the rebate, Farnworth explained the province wanted to ensure ICBC was in the financial position to afford this.

“We had significant problems at ICBC, and we made it clear that not only were the changes in terms of enhance care needed – and we put those in place – but we want to ensure that ICBC and the numbers and the figures around ICBC finances were in fact strong enough to us to be able to deliver on on this commitment,” he said.


Horgan says the “cheques will be in the mail soon,” but you won’t see them for several weeks.

“The cheques won’t be issued until the beginning to the mid of March,” Horgan said. “But we wanted to make absolutely sure that we were keeping ICBC on sound financial footing, as we build the new, enhanced care model that we’ve been working on for the past three years.”

Returning some ICBC savings to the public was an NDP election campaign from last year.

ICBC launched an online tool last month to help British Columbians calculate their car insurance.

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