“What a colossal waste of money.”
This was how Coquitlam resident Shari O’Neill described the $1 rebate cheque she received from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) in a tweet that has since gone viral.
“It really costs more to send out this rebate from ICBC than the [amount] it was for… What should I spend it on?” her tweet continued.
In an interview with Tri-City News, O’Neill said that, at first, she thought that cheque was “some kind of a mistake or joke.” She added that her family had two cars insured during the qualifying period and paid about $200 a month for each of the vehicles. She said expected to receive at least $200 in rebates for both cars.
Responding to her tweet, ICBC said: “We’re committed to ensuring customers receive all the savings owed to them. As part of this commitment, we will be issuing refund cheques for any amount of $1 or more. This approach is a change from our historical practice of not issuing cheques for $5 or less.”
ICBC announced in February that customers who had insured vehicles between April 1, 2020 and September 30, 2020 will receive one-time rebates averaging $190 – their part of the $600 million the insurer saved because of a huge drop in claims as the pandemic took hold.
Last week, the Crown corporation announced that they have started distributing rebate cheques after to eligible customers after a cyberattack caused a delay.
The distribution was scheduled to start last March 15, but a security breach on the third-party vendor that the insurer contracted to issue the cheques forced the postponement.
O’Neill told Tri-City News that it would have made more sense if ICBC just credited the amount on her insurance for the following year. She said that the cheque is also too small to cash because her bank charges a deposit fee.
