ICBC renewal woes

I am starting to tire of saying “it is what it is.” Living life with BOHICA syndrome (bend over here it comes again) is tough.

Perhaps I get confused, but a guy runs for the highest office in the U.S. saying openly that he can grope women wherever he wants, lies, cheats and wins an election. Then a few years later he admits that he asked a “political favour” from a foreign country to help win an election and passes trade secrets to an enemy of his own state, and he gets taken to court and is found innocent! 

On a less dramatic note, insurance renewals at ICBC are pretty interesting, and as always it is a very controversial organization that serves no real purpose other than to lose my taxpayer money by charging me about 40% more than they should for insurance and wasting it.

That aside, I was confused when I went in for a renewal, which is not easy because every potential driver in the house now has to accompany me or fill in forms (which by the way never worked online every time I tried to get a quote). I asked the lady helping to make sure she looked at which profile ICBC uses for me because for the past 20 odd years they have one profile at maximum discounts and one that is absolutely not at any discounts. Apparently in their wisdom they could never figure out a way to cancel the bad profile. I did ask once, if I got a DUI, would it only apply to one of may profiles… you can guess the answer. 

The lady looked at me and said there is no such thing as a discount anymore. OK, I get it, so I asked how they accounted for my driving experience, skills and no claims status. “Now, you are assigned a number,” she exclaimed. Brilliant I thought and asked how does that work? “I don’t know,” was the reply. 

My insurance surprise, surprise had gone up a lot. So I tried a different way to get my question answered. “So how does my number add up compared to everyone else?” Straight away she replied, “You are middle of the pack.”

I might have looked a little flustered at that point, so I asked in plain English. “Does it make any sense to you that a guy who last year had the maximum discounts, has been driving for the past 40-plus years, has only had one speeding ticket in his life and has never had a claim, let alone at fault, who is also an advanced driving instructor would be mid-pack”

“Dunno,” she replied… “Nothing makes sense at ICBC. You can call them if you want; it might save you a few hundred bucks.” 

So far I am waiting for the meds to bring my blood pressure down so I can make the call. 

Perhaps nothing makes sense anymore.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.