ICBC dropping luxury car insurance '4 years too late', NDP MLA says
Opposition critic Adrian Dix says ICBC rates have already gone up 30% since 2011
The official opposition is calling out the B.C. Liberals after a recent announcement on car insurance rates, saying the government should have moved faster to implement the change.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone announced Tuesday that ICBC will soon stop insuring luxury cars that sell for more than $150,000 in an effort to quell rising insurance rates.
That would mean owners of personal luxury vehicles would have to get private insurance once the legislation is passed.
The province argues that accidents involving luxury vehicle insurance claims are expensive and place an unfair burden on the vast majority of rate payers.
NDP MLA Adrian Dix commends the move, but says it will do little to stop the rise in rates.
"It's a small measure, it's a useful measure — but it comes four years too late," he told host Rick Cluff on CBC's The Early Edition.
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"For the last four years, since the last time ICBC adjusted their risk formula ... they're telling us that we've been subsidizing cars that are worth more than $150,000."
Dix says the measure was only introduced after the province received pressure from the B.C. Utilities Commission to make expected yearly rate increases public.
"They only acted because the Utilities Commission told them to tell the truth," he said.
Best-case scenario still includes hike
The truth includes a worst-case scenario where rates increase an estimated 42 per cent by 2020 due to skyrocketing claims and increases in cases of insurance fraud.
In the best-case scenario, rates will go up 15.8 per cent in the same period. Dix says rates have already gone up 30 per cent since 2011.
Chuck Byrne, president of the Insurance Brokers Association of British Columbia, says the ICBC rates align with hikes across Canada.
"We're building better cars, and people are surviving more accidents, but catastrophic injuries flow from that. All these things add up to significant costs that the people of B.C. are well looked after with, but the reality is that someone has to pay the price."
With files from CBC's The Early Edition and BC Almanac
To listen to the full interview, click on the audio labelled: ICBC dropping luxury car insurance 'four years too late', NDP MLA says