Drivers will have a grace period to pay off at-fault insurance claims: ICBC

Sep 6 2019, 5:46 pm

The start of September ushered in a new system for how ICBC calculates insurance premiums.

Among the many changes made, one of the focal points is the transition to a driver-based system, where at-fault crashes will follow the driver responsible, rather than the involved vehicle.

Another major change includes a newly-introduced limit on claim repayments. ICBC has always given its customers the ability to repay claims but starting this month, there will be a $2,000 cap.

The company says, however, that customers will also receive a “grace period” to pay off older at-fault claims. This, in essence, would give drivers with multiple at-fault crashes the opportunity to effectively pay off or erase their poor record.

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“We realize that claims have a bigger impact now than with the old rules,” says Tyler McGilvery, spokesperson for ICBC. We want our customers to make an educated decision, to get their renewal quote, then make a choice.”

The grace period will allow for claim repayment until August 31, 2020, but will only apply to crashes that take place before September 1, 2019.

Drivers will also have the opportunity to pay off an at-fault claim even if they’ve already renewed their insurance under ICBC’s new model. Under the previous system, if a driver renewed their insurance policy without paying off a claim, they would no longer have the opportunity to pay it off at a later time.

“The window will remain open, even if you repay the claims,” McGilvery tells Daily Hive. “Before you had the decision to repay or let it impact and if it impacted your premiums, you couldn’t repay it.”

According to McGilvery, it’s hard to tell just how much customers could save by paying off their at-fault claims but he says that results can really vary.

“It really is a case-to-case scenario — it depends on other drivers on your policy, years of experience — it can really vary,” he says.

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