Dear Editor,
Re: “Quebec car insurance 10 times less than ICBC,” Letters, Sept. 22; “Bring on on-fault,” Letters, Sept. 13
Sure it costs less to insure a vehicle in Quebec and there is a reason for that. It is called “no-fault” insurance.
In B.C., we have some of, if not the, richest tort rules in the country. That means you can sue for all your losses.
Pain and suffering, lost income and any other imaginable harm your lawyer can come up with for which they take on average 33 to 40 per cent of the award.
In Quebec, you don’t have to sue, but the most you can receive if you are grievously injured is $242,000 in 2017.
Here in B.C., two to three times a week, ICBC is paying out $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 awards for grievous bodily injury.
Where does Mr. Lam think that money comes from?
FYI, Mr. Lam, in Quebec if a driver has the misfortune of getting injured in more than one accident, then the SAAQ goes to great lengths to delay or even deny compensations.
Unless one has had the misfortunes of having had an accident, the biases and callous treatment that accident victims receive remains unknown. Word is, they make ICBC look like nuns.
Mr. Lam wants to “stop the madness.” What I want to know is when it is his child who is lying in a hospital bed paralyzed from the neck down, is he going to be the first one to step up and say how happy he is that he saved $500 a year on his auto insurance and that the no fault “non-benefit” his child will receive is eminently fair?
There are no easy answers.
We need better education on and enforcement of our rules of the road.
There are things that can be done to bring more cost certainty.
But we also need to think long and hard before we start giving up our rights for the savings that come from no fault insurance.
Everyone of us is only a moment away from being hit by a distracted driver.
My dad always told me nothing in life is free and you get what you pay for. So we can either pay the price up front or pay the piper at the end.
Neither is necessarily palatable but it is our reality.
Andrew Tablotney (insurance broker)
Richmond
