Hard choices ahead for ICBC

ICBC is up a creek, and the NDP has chucked away two of the paddles it might have used.

The cost of settling minor claims for car crashes has risen 365 per cent since 2000. The gap between the premiums collected and the claims paid is expected to be $1.1 billion by 2019. Accounting firm Ernst and Young delivered a 203-page report that predicts drivers could see average premium increases of 30 per cent by 2019, if current trends continue.

But the new government has ruled out closing the gap by bringing back photo radar and switching to no-fault insurance.

With Attorney General David Eby prematurely closing the door on this and other options, ICBC’s situation is dire.

However, there is one important cost on ICBC’s books that is left over from the B.C. Liberals: the $1.2 billion the Liberal government took from profits from the optional insurance side of ICBC since 2010.

It was only in November that the Liberals promised to try to kick their dividend addiction, saying they had ruled out skimming from the corporation for the next three years, in an effort to ease the financial pressures.

Unfortunately, what they skimmed over the past seven years has helped dig the financial hole deeper. It will take some innovative thinking and some painful choices to set things right.