Northern BC residents have until four o’clock this afternoon to have their say on the government’s ICBC rate fairness engagement survey.
One of the issues up here is rates appropriate to the population as the north is much smaller in size and sees fewer accidents when compared to the Lower Mainland.
“Driving in where there are not as many vehicles on the road, where there is not as much traffic we see fewer accidents. One of the areas of feedback that we get, especially from rural areas is that there are fewer cars out here with fewer accidents and we should see lower rates,” says David Eby, Attorney General of BC.
Eby adds if ICBC is leaning toward a distance-based model, a few factors need to be considered.
“Those rates should be more proportionate between rural areas and urban areas and ICBC needs to recognize if they are looking at distance-based insurance that people in northern communities will be driving more as there is a greater distance between homes and businesses.”
“Any metric that wants to use distance driven to determine rates needs to be done very carefully to ensure rural communities are not impacted and one of the specific proposals that are on the table that could be of interest to northern communities is for a proposal that sees vehicles used less than five thousand kilometers may receive a lower rate because a lot of people in northern communities will have vehicles that they use recreationally that they put fewer kilometres on whether its one they take out in less snow or a vehicle they take out in the summer.”
Perhaps one of the most vocal groups during this process has been the Canadian Taxpayers Federation who would like to see ICBC turned into a co-op and opened up to a competition where customers can shop around and compare policies so they can decide which policy is best for them.
However, Eby believes the philosophy put forth by the CTF is slightly out of touch with reality.
“I really want to take the people from the taxpayers federation on a drive to Ontario and where they have a fully privatized market and they have the highest rates of insurance in Canada where they have widespread dysfunction in their auto body repair and legal system, it is in the subject of public reports. We have challenges in BC but I think ours are fixable – ICBC can be like Saskatchewan’s model where the insurer is a huge net benefit to the province, ICBC has been a huge net benefit to the province in the past delivering low rates and all kinds of benefits to taxpayers.”
So far, over 29,000 questionnaires have been completed with the website garnering over 59,000.
For your opportunity to participate in the survey click here.