Vaughn Palmer: Eby has no plans to privatize ICBC, and reforms do little to cut costs
Credit to Author: Gord Kurenoff| Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2020 01:36:20 +0000
VICTORIA — After 2½ years as cabinet minister in charge of ICBC, Attorney-General David Eby admits to making little progress in restoring credibility to the troubled auto insurance company.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that many British Columbians simply don’t trust ICBC,” he conceded during a Wednesday press conference where he announced the latest steps in his rescue plan.
Joining Eby in the confessional was the CEO, Nicolas Jimenez.
“It’s fair to say there are some trust and credibility issues that have really been building up over a number of years,” Jimenez told host Al Ferraby on radio station CFAX. “We need to try harder, quite frankly, to improve how people perceive us and how people experience us.”
Jimenez would know first hand how the credibility problem has been building. He’s been at ICBC for 17 years and served in two executive positions before his appointment as CEO 18 months ago.
Eby also admitted the critics are right about British Columbians paying too much for auto insurance.
“I agree with British Columbians who feel that our insurance is still too expensive, that we pay too much,” he told reporters Wednesday.
But he rejected calls to privatize ICBC.
“We will not be going in that direction,” said Eby, confirming the New Democrats are still wedded to the company they created as a government-owned auto insurance monopoly almost 50 years ago. Yet he acknowledged that ICBC, with its current financial state and rate profile, is scarcely an argument for public auto insurance.
“When you look across the country at other public insurers, they’re delivering insurance much more affordably,” said Eby. “So we have additional reforms to control some of the legal costs that are associated with our system in B.C. that we will be announcing on a go-forward basis.”
But having conceded all that, he proceeded to announce three reforms that were of little consequence in the drive to bring down premiums.
Step one was the promise of a fairness commissioner to act as a kind of ombudsperson for rate payers who wish to complain about — well about anything other than rates. Or settlements.
Those will still be handled by the independent utilities commission, in the case of rates, and by the courts and the civil litigation tribunal in the case of settlements.
Turns out ICBC already has a fairness office, though by Eby’s account it is a well-kept secret.
“There has not been an emphasis on the office,” said the minister, again with the CEO looking on. “It’s not clear to B.C.ers how to find it quickly or easily.”
Or at all, for that matter. Last year the fairness office fielded a mere 60 complaints.
But all that will change starting next year, says Eby. “We’re going to supercharge it,” he declared. “We’re going to give it more powers.”
Perhaps the newly empowered fairness commissioner will be allowed to roam ICBC headquarters with a Taser, and wearing a cape.
Eby promised to strike a second blow for corporate credibility by ordering ICBC to produce “more customer friendly materials written in plain language. … If someone does want to know more about ICBC, they shouldn’t be pointed toward a complex report that only auditors and accountants understand.”
Actually ICBC already generates plenty of plain language. Eby just has to know where to listen. Ask anyone with younger drivers in the family how they feel about the new rate structure. He’ll get back a streak of the plainest language imaginable.
The third reform announced this week was prepayments on litigation — essentially expedited payments for accident victims, depending on the injury.
But with a catch, as a followup statement from Eby’s office made clear: “This does not apply to anyone who enters into an agreement with a lawyer and agrees to be represented by them before discussions with ICBC about a pre-litigation payment.”
Those getting the payouts would have the option of consulting a lawyer after the fact if they wish to seek further redress.
But Eby says the prepayment freeze-out is so lawyers, working on contingency, wouldn’t be able to scoop up 30 per cent of the up front settlement.
Still, it is sobering to see the former head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association discouraging accident victims from consulting a lawyer before entering into settlement talks with the deep-pocketed and untrustworthy auto insurance giant.
What’s next for ICBC, offering pay day loans or advances on income tax refunds?
In any event, none of the foregoing will do much to address the larger challenge of getting runaway premiums under control.
Next up, according to Eby, are updates on rates, finances and how ICBC intends to deal with the estimated $400 million hit that ICBC took when it lost a court challenge to its effort to rein in the cost of medical experts in litigation.
“I believe that we are at a state where I can say that ICBC finances have stabilized,” he told reporters. “Where we are not, is at a place where I can say that under our current reforms, B.C.ers are going to be seeing savings in their current premiums. That’s where I’d like to be and that’s where our future reforms will be aimed.”
Wait for it, in other words.
But in the meantime, angry ratepayers and other critics should not put the plain language on the shelf just yet.
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