BC Conservatives Leader John Rustad calls the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) a “bloated monopoly” and a “broken system” and announces a new plan to end the insurance company’s monopoly across the province.
The party says it will bring fair, competitive car insurance to drivers across B.C.
“On top of that, David Eby and the NDP have stripped away the rights of accident victims to fight for the support they need to rebuild their lives. That’s not just wrong, it’s cruel,” Rustad said, according to a release Wednesday.
Lawyer at Acumen Law Corporation in Vancouver Kyla Lee tells 1130 NewsRadio that getting rid of the ICBC monopoly would minimize the restrictions that ICBC currently has.
“Individual insurance companies would be able to make their own policies about how much they pay out, rather than the current restrictions that ICBC has, where it really limits the amount of benefits you get,” she said.
“That’s going to give more options to consumers who want to have affordable insurance rates, more competition in the marketplace to get better outcomes in their insurance cases.”
However, she says she doesn’t think that just ending the ICBC monopoly is going to “restore everybody’s ability to bring an action in court.”
“It would require more than simply allowing competition in the insurance market, because the NDP government amended legislation in BC to actually prohibit bringing a court action related to a car accident claim, except in very limited circumstances,” Lee said.
“There would have to be a legislative amendment to go along with that to give people all of their rights back in insurance cases.”
Lee says she thinks the best option would be to keep ICBC as a public insurer and add the private system to it.
“I think that that type of two-tiered system for insurance is good for consumers because it allows people who want to have a more competitive product that maybe costs more money, but gives them more in terms of payouts for claims,” the lawyer said.
