As expected, not everyone is happy with the recent British Columbia Utilities decision to approve Insurance Corporation of Canada’s (ICBC) application for a 6.3% increase in basic auto insurance. Among the disappointed is Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s (CTF) BC director Kris Sims.
“I just feel really bad for the rate payers, which is pretty much everyone with a car in BC,” Sims told My Prince George Now. “Your rates are going up and you have no choice about it because the government told you how much your rates are going up by. I also want to point out that drivers in other provinces don’t need to put up with this.”
Sims also called attention to the fact that neither BC Utilities nor ICBC have released any statements on optional insurance rates. “As far as we can see, we haven’t seen the optional insurance rate increase or decrease – we haven’t had an announcement on that which is causing some concern because usually, they would announce the basic and the optional at the same time,” she told My PG Now.
“It could be that it is going down but you would think they would want to trumpet that, but maybe it is staying the same, maybe they are calculating it in a different way – it’s odd. It is odd to see they are not announcing the optional rate and we’re trying to find that out.”
Additionally, Sims cast doubt on statements by BC Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Eby that careful, law-abiding drivers would see their insurance rates go down.
“What’s interesting about what Minister Eby said when he made that structural change announcement about ICBC is those good drivers would pay less than they otherwise would have been, that is a big catch,” said Sims.
“This means their rates aren’t necessarily going down if you’re a good driver – they are just not going to go up as they otherwise would have been.”
