BC Government's ICBC Law Labels Collision Brain Injuries "Minor"
Earlier this year the BC Government called ICBC a ‘dumpster fire’. They suggested drastic overhaul was needed to keep the Crown insurer alive and well. In order to let them keep their monopoly the rights of British Columbians injured through careless drivers would need to be stripped.
But don’t worry, the Government assured us, only those who suffer ‘minor’ injuries will have their rights reduced. All who watch Government know, however, that the Devil’s in the details. Today those details came out and their assurances were misleading. Many major injuries are caught in their ‘minor’ injury dragnet.
In an April 2, 2018 press release the Government assured the public “brain injuries” would not be labeled as minor. Today Regulations were published that flat out state otherwise.
These Insurance (Vehicle) Regulations label a “concussion” as a “minor injury“. A concussion is a brain injury. There is no grey here. The Government lied.
This brain injury inclusion is in addition to those injuries they previously told us are minor including
- Chronic Depression
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Conversion Disorders
- Chronic Pain Syndromes
- Chronic physical injuries
- Disabling physical injuries
- All psychological “conditions”
- All psychiatric “conditions”
There is already press out suggesting that “if psychological injuries, including minor concussions, last longer than four months, the caps no longer apply. If any physical injury lasts longer than 12 months, in those cases caps will not exist.” This is not accurate. The regulations create a far more onerous workaround to this ‘minor’ injury cap than simply having symptoms persist for more than 4 or 12 months respectively. I will tackle that in a subsequent article. For now, I just wanted to call a spade a spade. The government lied. British Columbians’ rights have been drastically stripped for insurance company profit.