Calculating your car insurance before ICBC’s new model kicks in this September

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As of Tuesday morning, drivers within 44 days of renewing their car insurance in B.C. will be able to use a new tool to “generate an online estimate for their own personal insurance coverage.”

ICBC’s new estimation tool will help a motorist understand how things like adding a driver to their policy will impact what they pay.

Anyone who is outside of the 44 day renewal period won’t be able to make use of the estimation tool, but will be able to use another, previously released education tool, which will allow drivers to see how factors like driving experience, crash history, and adding drivers to their policies could impact their basic insurance premiums.

“This tool will give you a driver type, which is a driver profile that closely matches your situation,” ICBC’s website reads. “Based on the choices you make about how the car is driven and who drives your car, it will show how the Basic premiums will be impacted.”

The launch of the corporation’s newest tool comes less than a week before ICBC’s new changes kick in.
Attorney General David Eby — who is responsible for ICBC — has said rates are going to increase for bad drivers — and by a lot — as the insurance corporation switches to a more driver-based model.

However, Eby has promised most policy holders should see their premium go down.

As part of the changes at ICBC, drivers with serious convictions like Criminal Code offences, impaired driving, or distracted driving will see their premiums rise with each infraction based on the seriousness of them, as of the beginning of September. This only applies to optional insurance.

The auto insurer will also be scanning back over the previous three years of your record by June 10, 2022.

ICBC has called this new model a “more driver-friendly” one, and has said once it’s fully up and running, three quarters of the province’s drivers will be better-off financially than they currently are.

According to ICBC, 10 per cent of drivers have either two or more minor driving convictions or have been convicted of a serious driving offence in the past three years.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to an older tool that was released by ICBC. It has been corrected to identify the new tool, which the insurer says is “specific to customers’ insurance policies and will show them the impact of adding drivers to their policies.” We apologize for the confusion.