Though the Insurance Bureau of Canada has been trying to convince the British Columbians about private insurance being better than public insurance, it is not true. Four years have been spent by the IBC in actively pushing forward the for-profit auto insurance systems. They claim that private insurance can provide better services than ICBC. However, the argument doesn’t hold good since there is a lot of evidence to prove that when it is done right public insurance is certainly a better option than private insurance.
The IBC basically represents the interests of private insurance companies. Last week, Lindsay Olson also argued on behalf of IBC. In fact, Olson had argued stating that the auto insurance rates in BC would decrease if it was under private insurance. However, these numbers don’t add up when you look at the independent research that was carried out by some of the organizations such as the Consumers’ Association of Canada. These studies have been conducted using the same driver and the same vehicle and with the same driving record.
In all these cases, BC along with the rest of the provinces with public insurance seem to be doing very well when compared to the ones with private insurance. Though the IBC wants you to believe that the rates will come down because of the competition, but that is far from the truth. The reason for this is that these private insurance companies are all answerable to their shareholders and not the BC. Hence, the insurance rates in this system will never be able to beat the rates in the public insurance system or the ICBC.
In Alberta, there are a number of instances where some of these motorists may get cheaper auto insurance rates. But even under such circumstances where they are able to avail better rates because they are considered to be low-risk, the coverage is not good. Whereas, the coverage that is offered by ICBC in the basic package is far better than the coverage that is offered by private insurers. Even the maximum benefit that is offered for medical rehabilitation is just one-third of ICBC’s basic package. This type of coverage will make a huge difference in case you happen to be involved in a serious crash.
ICBC was actually created to address the issues of uninsured drivers. Their numbers are huge and that is the reason for the rates of private insurance to rise.
