ICBC Law

While this blog is primarily concerned about ICBC injury claims against at-fault drivers (tort claims) written reasons for judgment were released today that are of interest to anyone caught up in a dispute with ICBC with respect to their own insurance coverage and the value of damage to their car.

Master Young of the BC Supreme Court clarified the fact that courts do not have jurisdiction to deal with an ICBC dispute regarding the value of vehicle loss.

In this case the Plaintiff’s vehicle was damaged in an accident. The vehicle was a write off. The Plaintiff had collision coverage with ICBC and asked for fair value. ICBC paid $18,000. The Plaintiff said the vehicle was worth $40,000 because it had a new engine and 2 extra large gas tanks installed prior to the accident and this had to be considered when determining fair value.

ICBC argued that the BC courts have no jurisdiction to deal with such a dispute. ICBC relied on section 142 of the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act and said this section requires such disputes to be dealt with by mandatory arbitration. For the sake of being accurate, I should point out that this section has since been repealed but been replaced with an almost identical section in the Insurance (Vehicle) Act.

The court held that, under s. 142, ‘the courts have no jurisdiction to deal with coverage disputes, given that there is mandatory arbitration set up by s. 142‘ In reaching this conclusion the Master cited a previous decision from a BC Supreme Court Judge where it was held that “the statute imposes a mandatory forum for the resolution of these disputes, and this Court is excluded from the process‘. Master Young also noted that the BC Supreme Court judge ‘goes on to caution that the claimant, if he wishes to pursue arbitration, must move quickly because he is statue barred two years after the date of loss‘.

The court concluded that this Plaintiff should have gone to mandatory arbitration. Given that the arbitration remedy was not exercised in 2 years the Plaintiff was out of luck, not being able to have the matter decided by a court or by arbitration.

This case serves of an example of the consequences people with ICBC claims can face if they do not comply with the limitations governing their claim. If you are in an ICBC dispute and don’t have a lawyer be sure to know your limitation periods! This is sometimes easier said than done as even Master Young acknowledged that in this case the legislation was ‘confusing‘.

The court obviously sympathized with the Plaintiff and said that she wished she could extend the deadline and if she could she made it pretty clear that she felt that ICBC’s materials showed ‘nothing..to indicate that (ICBC) gave any consideration to the fact that the vehicle had a new engine‘.

Tags: free consultation, icbc, icbc advice, ICBC injury claim, icbc injury lawyer, vehicle damage

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.