MIKE SMYTH:
Promised savings from ICBC premium reforms misleading
Being a lawyer by training, David Eby is one of the NDP’s most talented wordsmiths, a guy who can take a bad-news announcement and make it sound like a reason for joyful celebration.
He put on a master class of spin on Thursday while announcing the government’s new “rate structure” for ICBC premiums.
“It’s long overdue to have insurance rates that are fair,” Eby said, announcing twothirds of B.C. drivers will get a break on their premiums.
Eby said the government will punish the other onethird of drivers — the bad apples who rack up speeding tickets and cause accidents.
Those bad drivers will see their premiums go up, he said. Great news, right? Twothirds of B.C. drivers will pay less for their car insurance, right? Eby’s news conference sure made it sound that way.
But you had to look at the fine print and not just the spin.
The government issued a press release that said 39 per cent of drivers will get “up to $50 reduction” on their insurance bills. It said 13 per cent of drivers will receive “between $50 and $100 reduction” while 15 per cent of drivers — the best and safest motorists on the road — will get “more than $100 reduction.”
If you’re a safe driver and you think this means cash in your pocket, think again.
A close reading of the press release — and a series of cheerful graphics showing how much money people will save — contained this critical qualification: “Examples based on today’s rates.”
Eby continued the sneaky language, saying the savings would be realized if the new rate structure “was implemented today.”
Here’s the problem: The new rate structure is not being implemented today. It won’t come into effect until September, 2019.
In the meantime, ICBC is preparing to jack up insurance rates for everybody. And because ICBC is losing $3.5 million a day, you can bet the rate hike will be substantial.
By the end of this year, ICBC will apply to the B.C. Utilities Commission for a rate hike that will be approved next spring.
How big will the rate hike be? Eby didn’t want to talk about that.
“I don’t want to speculate,” he said.
The likeliest outcome: All drivers will end up paying more. Bad drivers will get walloped hard. Good drivers will get a less-severe whack in the wallet.
Or, as Eby put it, two-thirds of B.C. drivers will be paying “less than they otherwise would be” once the rates are hiked and a new rate structure follows. Oh, and then rates will almost certainly be cranked up again in early 2020.
It’s still a good thing ICBC is modernizing its rate system. Safe drivers deserve a break, and drivers causing a record number of accidents — a shocking 960 crashes a day, translating into an accident every minute-and-a-half in B.C. — deserve to pay more.
But ICBC is in such dire financial shape, it’s hard to see how most, if not all, B.C. drivers don’t end up paying more in the end.