Court Criticizes ICBC “Failure” To Pay For Necessary Treatments Highlighting Shortcomings of their so called “Care Based” Model
ICBC and the Provincial government have been working overtime trying to persuade British Columbians that stripping collision victims of the right to go to court to be fairly paid for their injuries is a good idea. They claim that by taking away these rights ICBC will treat victims fairly under a so-called ‘care based’ model.
Reasons for judgement were published this week by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, demonstrating that ICBC can be anything but fair when it comes to meeting their obligations to pay for long term injury treatments.
In today’s case (Del Bianco v. Yang) the Plaintiff sustained life long injuries in a collision. At trial he was awarded damages which included payment for future care for massage therapy and kinesiology. Despite being ordered to pay this money ICBC refused saying they will pay that portion of the judgement from the Plaintiff’s ‘no fault’ insurance with them over the years as the treatments are incurred. An ICBC adjuster swore an affidavit declaring payments would be made.
The Court did not accept that ICBC would make payments, however, noting that they refused to pay the mandated no-fault benefits in the years prior to trial leaving little confidence that they would fairly meet their future obligations. In refusing to deduct the vast majority of the awarded future care costs Mr. Justice Groves provided the following criticism of ICBC’s handling of the claim and their unexplained “failure” to pay past benefits they were obliged to: