In recent times, ICBC has been taken a very aggressive approach in trying to deny insurance coverage if at all possible.
If you have been drinking some alcohol and driving a vehicle, ICBC will often breach you of your contract of insurance despite the fact that the police do not charge you with impaired driving but provide you with a 24-hour roadside suspension. Equally, ICBC will continue to breach you of your contract of insurance even in a situation where you are able to have a criminal charge dismissed for impaired driving.
This is surprising because technically ICBC is required to prove that your ability to drive the vehicle was impaired by reason of alcohol. However, they simply say you must have been impaired since the police suspected it and then rule there is a breach of your contract of insurance.
The system then allows ICBC’s ruling on insurance coverage to be the final say unless you sue ICBC for insurance coverage. ICBC knows that most people will not sue them for coverage and will ignore the situation.
The next thing that happens is ICBC sends a demand letter to the breached insured after the claim has been settled with any third parties. The demand letter could be years later and asks the breached insured to pay back all the money ICBC paid for vehicle damage, personal injuries, etc. If you don’t pay, ICBC will likely take away your driver’s license or your insurance and even start collection proceedings against you.
The breached insured also has little chance to dispute the amount ICBC pays out on the claim yet it becomes a debt of the breached insured.
Another example of where ICBC is very aggressive on denying insurance coverage in how the vehicle is insured. The two main areas of review are who is the principal operator for the vehicle and is the vehicle properly insured for travel to work or for business use.
In a motor vehicle accident were you are driving a vehicle which you are not the principal operator, one of the first things ICBC does is runs a computer program to see if the insurance for the vehicle would be more expensive if you had been registered as the principal operator. Without much more evidence about who is the main driver of the vehicle, they say there is a principal operator breach and deny insurance coverage.
The same thing applies if the vehicle is being used for work at the time of the accident and it is not insured that way.
You may tell ICBC that the insurance coverage is proper but seldom do they accept what the insured says. Rather, ICBC makes bold assumptions knowing full well that most individuals do not have the financial resources to sue ICBC or the understanding of the need to sue ICBC.
You cannot ignore the situation where ICBC breaches your contract of insurance. You need to sue for insurance coverage or you may well be left with a significant debt with ICBC that you have to pay off. You need to sue ICBC within one year of the denial of coverage.
