ICBC no-fault system leaves Oliver woman frustrated, still waiting for health care payments following crash

An Oliver resident is exhausted by the constant challenges she's been facing to get compensation for her recovery care under ICBC's no-fault system, limiting her options a year after she was in a collision.

Twyla Woloshyn was involved in a car crash on Dec. 1, 2021 that left her with soft tissue damage, whiplash and back pain.

"I'm stopped on the Channel Parkway waiting to turn right, and there are a few cars in front of me, and I hear a sound which makes me look up in my rearview mirror," Woloshyn said.

"I see a vehicle trying to cut in between me and the vehicle behind me and he's going so fast and then screeching on his brakes. He literally smashed into me."

"So the accident was 100 per cent his fault. He knew that, I knew that...He hit me so hard that he bent the unit rails underneath my vehicle."

Woloshyn said she immediately felt pain across her shoulders and neck.

"I didn't feel my hips. I felt something happened. But I didn't know what happened in my hips, where the seat belt was, is where the problems are left in my body."

After calling into ICBC the next day and explaining what happened, Woloshyn said they told her to go for a massage and to see a chiropractor.

"[They said] 'We'll pay for it.' I went to massage about six times in the next probably 10 days."

Woloshyn couldn't immediately get in to see a chiropractor, but did go to see one as soon as an appointment opened up.

Soon, Woloshyn ended up in the hospital with other life-threatening issues, unrelated to the crash, which left the shoulder not dealt with.

When she was released from the hospital in February, Woloshyn said she checked back in with ICBC to give an update on her health and said she submitted receipts from her massage treatment in December, which is when she was told she needed to specifically see an Registered Massage Therapist (RMT).

With the health care shortages in the Interior, the only local RMT that she could find was registered in Alberta, making Twyla’s treatment ineligible for compensation by ICBC.

"I have all those receipts for from probably March to the summer," Woloshyn said. "She was trying to put together a treatment plan and she's communicating with ICBC and she is an RMT."

Woloshyn said she was frustrated because she had spent so much time trying to find an RMT available to see her and she was the only one she could find.

She tried again in July when ICBC told her it wouldn't work.

"I phoned around in July to find one from Penticton down to the border for all the massagers everywhere that I could find on the internet. I phoned every single one. I only got one call back."

"[They] said, 'Yes, we are RMT but we won't do ICBC, it's too much of a hassle.'"

Woloshyn said she finally found another RMT, but then faced the same issues.

"I just submitted the last of it from November. And she sends me back a few weeks ago, this email that says, they've rejected all the massages because these are not RMTS in BC."

Woloshyn has been left to pay for all of her RMT expenses out of pocket since the accident.

"I've heard it's all deny, deny, deny in the insurance industry. And it's only a very small percentage of people who stand up to fight."

Since all of her care has been denied, Woloshyn has stopped getting the treatment.

"They cut off the massage so I didn't go for massages, so they haven't reimbursed me over $2,000 all this year, they rejected all those things," she said.

"I can't move my arm all the way. It's very frustrating dealing with them and I have had sleepless nights over this month because of the stress of the emails, the rejection emails."

ICBC’s enhanced care system went into effect in May 2021.

In an accident, regardless of fault, both parties are entitled to the same benefit schedule, and plaintiffs can only sue the at-fault driver if they are convicted of a criminal offence, like impaired driving.

Woloshyn said she wants to see BC's no-fault system gone.

"Now that I’ve had pain and suffering, I want a settlement for that because that’s why I have insurance. They’re there to cover these situations," she added.

"I want to be reimbursed for what I've paid every single cent and dollar."