Quote:
Originally Posted by undercoverbrother
I have never dealt with ICBC, but was your friend forced to take the offer?
Isn't there a dispute resolution process?
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Yes. Basically forced to take offer.
She said they got the proposed payout number quickly and spent 2-3 months with someone close to them who is a lawyer by trade, to negotiate/dispute the number with different supporting documentation/reasoning etc. They said they made more than half a dozen attempts at "negotiations". ICBC would say a ton of meaningless stuff to pretend they weren't stonewalling, but didn't budge once from that number.
I believe she said their last attempts were to simply ask ICBC if they'd bump up the payout by $1,000 and then $500. ICBC still said no and stuck with the original number.
EDIT: I think she said that because we had AB plates/insurance, if I got into a collision there, they'd probably pay us full value without much argument. But because she's a BC resident, she believed that ICBC was more likely to roll over on them if any claims were made. We were ranting about our insurance woes and in the end, I basically ceded that she won (lost?) by a significant margin.
I mean it makes a bit of sense. ICBC basically represents both sides in BC in almost all cases for vehicle insurance claims there. It's kind of a conflict of interest. By just declaring no fault and doing partial payouts, they save money administratively and lower payouts. This protects them from overly massive payouts which some private insurance companies complain about at times.