The government’s attempt to staunch the flow of red ink at ICBC began in earnest on Monday. If it doesn’t work, the demands for more drastic measures — even privatization — will only grow.
To its credit, the NDP government is trying to do something about what Attorney General David Eby called the “financial dumpster fire” at the insurance corporation. It’s a fire that is expected to burn through $3 billion in two years.
However, the NDP’s solution is raising questions and hackles, especially among lawyers.
With minor-injury claims increasing, the new rules put a limit of $5,500 on pain and suffering claims for minor injuries in car crashes. It will slash the number of cases that go to court. That could save the company $1 billion a year.
The province’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, which has been handling small-claims and strata cases, will become the arbiter for the minor-injury claims that can’t be worked out and for all injury claims that are valued at less than $50,000.
According to ICBC, that should send 80 per cent of claims to the tribunal rather than the courts. When larger claims go to court, the rules set limits on the number of expert witnesses who can be called.
The financial savings could be huge, but lawyers say it denies people their right to seek redress in the courts, so they wasted no time in launching a constitutional challenge. Of course, the new system would also put a big dent in lawyers’ incomes.
ICBC’s finances have to be fixed, but any fix must also serve the most important people in the equation: the customers.
