Wednesday, November 23, 2016

This Day In Clarkland...What The Premier Did NOT Say About ICBC

WithABCUCHereAndABCUC
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Update at bottom of post
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Premier Clark did not tell British Columbians who drive cars that she will return the hundreds and and hundreds of millions of dollars that she and hers have siphoned out of ICBC to build her phony regressive budget surplus by ripping huge chunks out of the collective back of said drivers (i.e. by levying a collective 30% increase over the last five years.

Instead, Ms. Clark told British Columbians the following, according to the MoCo's Richard Zussman:

..."I think ICBC should keep the rates at a 4.9 per cent increase, which is what the government is committed to doing. People cannot afford these massive rate increases," said Clark. "I am fighting for the ratepayers, people who drive cars, the moms and dads who already find life unaffordable."...


Fighting for those fine folks, indeed.

In the meantime Ms. Clark is is still doing her best to keep on giving uber-regressive tax breaks to those who need them least.

Or, putting it another way this is nothing but a stealth HST on wheels

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Meanwhile,  in case you missed it, Ms. Clark's Transport Minister Mr. Todd Stone threw a little iodine onto the scarred backs of those 'moms and dads who already find life unnaffordable' when he told them that he wouldn't actually siphon any of their money out of ICBC this year (see very bottom of Rob Shaw's VSun piece).

As for next year, and the year after that, and the year after that...

Well?


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The real story here?...The BC Utilities Commission is demanding that ICBC come up with projections for rate increases for the next four years....Today...So be watching for that...Or not.
Update: Wednesday afternoon....Meanwhile while we wait for the long term rate increase projections....Deflector spin Uber-Alles direct from Todd Stone's mouth


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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

BCUC must not buckle to ICBC's demands of withholding future increase projections. Why is there no competition for insurance in BC? Why are we stuck with the ICBC monopoly?

JR said...

ICBC was brought in as an automotive insurance company. As long as that is all it does I have no problem with it. What I do not like is it is now the collection arm of the Government for a variety of fees/fines not paid that have nothing to do with auto insurance. They also sponsor Counter Attack stops, a police function, and give the government hundreds of millions as you stated above. All these extras are what is driving the majority of cost increases. Get back to insurance alone and get the politics out of ICBC. Then and only then will we be able to assess the Corporation to see if it is really worthwhile to keep. I suspect it would be but with all the extras I cannot say for sure.

Crankypants said...

Is the problem ICBC or what ICBC has morphed into? When ICBC was created there was also a Motor Vehicle Department run by the provincial government. Vehicle licenses, driver's licenses, transfer of titles of motor vehicles and sundry other items were handled by the Motor Vehicle Branch. Over the years ICBC and the Motor Vehicle Department have become one and the same entity.

What we don't know is how the fees collected for the MVB duties are dealt with. Do they go to ICBC or general revenue of the government?

Anonymous said...

Follow the money-ICBC a backdoor proxy ,shoveling dividends surplus into general revenue much like BCHydro.?

Lew said...

@JR:

Well said.

Anonymous said...

Despite the fact the government announced several months ago that it will not siphon off a "dividend" from ICBC in this fiscal year, ICBC needs to raise its premiums by 4.9 percent?

Clearly that indicates that ICBC is being mismanaged and run into the ground. If ICBC was an efficiently run, that should have allowed ICBC to reduce insurance premiums.

As usual, excessive claim on the part of motorists are blamed to justify premium increases. But that is just a red herring to cover up for the repair fiasco.

Under the guise of giving motorists a choice of where to take their vehicles for repair, ICBC has established a cozy relationship with "approved: repair shops which are given a blank cheque to proceed with repairs without providing a fixed estimate/quote. And when the repair is completed, the approved shops are able to submit a revised invoice to cover overruns.

This arrangement essentially transfers all the risk from the repair shops to ICBC resulting in high premium increase except before a pending election...which explains why premium increases are always announced in November.

And check out the contributions by the auto-body repair industry to the BC Liberal party in the last five years...$40,000 by three shops.



Anonymous said...

Remove the thieves as quickly as possible. The message "is" very clear. These people do not give a rats "#&*$" for the common folk and taxpayers of this province. Remove the organized crime group known as the BC Liberals as soon as possible.
Don't think they are organized crime? Look up the definition in Martins, Annual Criminal code. Looks pretty clear to me.
Numerous organizations from CSIS to the Surete de Quebec, the OPP Organized Crime Squad, Interpol and a host of other organizations, worldwide, have identified by definition what organized crime is. Make no mistake, if it walks like a duck, sounds and looks like a duck, it probably is..a duck.
This corrupt form of governance is nothing short of white collar crime of the highest order.

A corruption enquiry will be the only way to get to the bottom of the manipulation of the BC taxpayer by this so called democratic government. In name only, its tactics are right out of the pages of a fascist regime, or communist dictator.
Media manipulation, obfuscation outright lies, cover ups, the list of malfeasance and sociopathic behavior goes on and on.

Where are the checks and balances in our so called democratic system, to prevent this from continuing or even happening in the first place?

North Van's Grumps said...

Hmmm according to ICBC Chairman Barry Penner's bio .... on LinkedIn

... ICBC provides universal compulsory auto insurance to drivers in British Columbia, with rates regulated by the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC).

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/barry-penner-q-c-35a67244

istvan said...

One more point JR, the bc liberals allowed private companies to syphon off the more profitable optional insurance while leaving ICBC to cover basic liability.

Crankypants said...

I think that Todd Stone is out of his mind. He states that ICBC will no longer insure luxury vehicles that are valued at $150k or more because the repairs are too costly. If someone driving a 20 year old pick up truck and wipes out one of these said luxury cars and is deemed at fault, ICBC will still be on the hook for paying out to repair or replace the luxury vehicle.

Another thing that seems to make no sense is how the rates are structured by ICBC. It seems that the value of the vehicle has little bearing the cost to insure said vehicle. If this is the case then can one assume that someone in government push for this policy to save their well healed supporters money on insurance premiums?

Keith E. said...

A comment from the Times Colonist. Nov. 23 2016.

More ICBC bad news withheld until after next years election.?

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-be-prepared-for-icbc-rate-increase-shock-1.3101218

cfvua said...

Looks like the first step backward to Privatize. I'm sure that some large private insurers would be happy to contribute to the party for a slice of the pie or what will most likely be the whole pie and any other pies that get made.
Charge owners based on value of the vehicles and by kms driven, fuel usage or hours spent in traffic combined with speed travelled. Slower speed limited vehicles are less risky to ensure. Almost all vehicles have recording devices in them now. Manufacturers use them for warranty purposes. If the customer doesn't drive, essentially, all that is required is a theft, vandalism and fire policy like the ICBC storage policy with a low rate per Km or whatever is the option chosen for rating purposes. Lots of driving (with higher rates)would address the additional exposure to risk that these vehicles see. ICBC currently does this with buses and truck fleets. This should be expanded to private vehicles. Insurance costs should be a bit more related to risk than they are now.
Repair costs for every vehicle are known. Charge owners of these vehicles more so consumer choices cause manufacturers to address parts pricing and replacement/write off comparison. Put rates online so people can make informed vehicle purchasing decisions based on repair/insurance cost.
Look at other provincial public Co-op insurance models. SGI now sells cargo and other types of insurance. Yes. In Conservative Saskatchewan. Their cargo insurance rates are very competitive and ironically several BC based carriers I know of are purchasing their coverage there. And they are not seeing huge increases in other vehicle coverage there either, which seems odd considering their leadership.

3000 vehicles in the value range shown. Why just this bunch? Way more commercial vehicles are insured at way higher values. A $150k value highway tractor can run around $1500/ month or more if not on a FLeet Repoting Policy. Cheap to insure your favourite super car for that one would think. Considering many would be business write offs. It is doubtful high end vehicle owners are extreme high km drivers. And as mentioned above liability claims from being hit by other vehicles won't go away.
One could safely assume there is more at play here.

e.a.f. said...

not insuring cars over $150K is crazy. The idea of ICBC WAS to insure all vehciles for all people in this province. If the B.C. Lieberals get away with this one, they will start lowering the limit and pretty soon no one will be covered.

Christy, Tod and the cabal have been blaming fraud, high cost of cars, high cost of repairs, everyone but themselves. if CHRISTY AND HER CABAL STOPPED "ROBBING" ICBC EACH YEAR FOR A HALF BILLION OR SO, ICBC WOULD BE SWIMMING IN MONEY AND WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY THESE OUTRAGEOUS FEES. JUST AOTHER E.G. OF THE B.C. LIEBERALS USING A CROWN CORPORTION TO "STEAL" MORE MONEY FROM CITIZENS.

I'm sure if we check on Norm Farrell's blog we would see exactly bow much money Christy Clark and the B.C. Lie berals have been forcing ICBC AND B.C. HYDRO TO kick over each year.

Oh, well people voted for her and the B.C. Lieberals and now they can live with the results. If you don't like high insurance rates change the government, its that easy.

Anonymous said...

Rob Shaw manages to write an ICBC rates column without mentioning dividends?
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/icbc-admits-42-per-cent-in-rate-hikes-possible-for-basic-auto-insurance

The refusal to continue to provide BASIC insurance to $150,000+ cars is the BC Liberals wedge to privatize ICBC... Just charge them what it costs to recover the costs...O0opz, that would piss off the richies who fund the BC Liberals.

RossK said...

Noticed that Anon-Above--

He did have it in yesterday's column though...It's the hit-run-and-bury-the-real-lede type journalism that the Wizards count on to bury bad news with deflector spike spin like the silly luxury car thingy.

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Keith E. said...

Re:

"Anonymous Anonymous said...
Rob Shaw manages to write an ICBC rates column without mentioning dividends"

Not just rob Shaw Anon, Les Leyne Friday 24th Nov. conveniently omits the old
" dividend" strategy while eventually concluding hammering $150.000 and above car owners doesn't amount to much.

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/les-leyne-luxury-car-owners-to-feel-icbc-bite-1.3155428