For the last 16 years I have been paying the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia as they're the only game in town (read: the province). With trepidation I had to consult the call-in claim centre today.
Sigh. Last week, after waxing my old truck, I was so pleased with the results that I wanted to find a nice location to take a photo of my handiwork. I remember taking a photo of it once under a cherry tree by New Westminster City Hall. The cherry blossoms are long gone but there is more vegetation up near Tipperary Park. I decided to park near the upper edge of the city hall lot. I jumped out of the vehicle without securing the hand brake. I didn't correctly align the wheels which can be important because this city is on a giant hill.
I walked about 3 meters away and turned to take the picture. Yikes, the truck was slowly rolling towards a parked car. Damn! I ran, opened the door, and tried to jump in to hit the brakes. I was too late.
At less than walking speed, my bumper hit the rear, passenger-side quarter panel. It's a little scary to realize how little it takes to destroy the skin of the metal containers we move about inside of. I ran inside the city offices to see if I could locate the owner. A very nice young girl owned it. We exchanged insurance and license information. Neither of us knew much about the procedures involved. She checked to see how much it would cost to fix both through independent repair and got an unofficial estimate through an ICBC garage. Those were $500 and $1400 respectively.
As I'd been a safe driver so long, I figured I'd like to go through official channels. I pay one and half times as much as the cheap quote for my annual liability insurance to my company. She called in first and confirmed that I had to as well. The procedure, as I didn't even have a scratch on my truck, involved calling the phone claim centre to acknowledge the incident. I did that today even though it is BC Day. I had to wait about a half hour for a representative. The actual call only lasted about five minutes. The woman who took the claim couldn't have been more friendly and polite.
I now know the system is pretty clever. Being a public insurer, ICBC starts with a base rate that doesn't really penalize young or inexperienced drivers. If a driver continues claim-free, he/she works towards future reductions. An early accident could easily push an auto owner into higher than base rates though. As I have been claim free for such a long time, I will not see any increase in rates, although I will move down the scale three steps. Now, I have just 13 claim-free years.
