An increase in crashes and higher repair costs are being blamed for the Insurance Corporation of B.C.’s latest application to hike rates.
ICBC is asking the province’s utilities commission to up basic insurance rates by 4.9 per cent, which would amount to an extra $3.50 a month on average.
The Crown corporation said outside pressures on rates are accelerating, with the number of reported crashes going from 260,000 in 2013 to 300,000 last year.
New and expensive vehicle technology paired with Canada’s weak dollar also helped push repair costs up 17 per cent in a single year, ICBC said, to $1.36 billion in 2015.
“We certainly don’t like to have to ask our customers to pay more but these external pressures are very real and they have created a perfect storm which we are struggling to hold off,” CEO Mark Blucher said in a statement.
The hike is slightly less than the 5.5 per cent increase imposed last year, but is still sure to frustrate many customers in the province.
Blucher said ICBC has worked to keep the increase as low as possible, and that without additional measures the insurance company would have had to hike rates by 15.5 per cent, or roughly $11 a month, to cover its costs.
ICBC was able to take the pressure off rates by stepping up fraud enforcement, by fighting distracted driving through public information, and with a $472 million transfer of income and capital from its optional insurance business.
The Crown corporation said its executive team has also decreased from 11 members four years ago down to eight, and that executive compensation has significantly decreased in recent years.
