Canadian Lawyer Magazine reports on and delivers award winning content on important legal issues throughout the country.
Jacqueline Small of our firm has been interviewed several times on issues relating to personal injury law in British Columbia by Canadian Lawyer Magazine.
Ms. Small was recently featured in Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s story about ICBC’s 6% disbursement cap to express her views of how unfair and discriminatory this new law is to the vulnerable and the injured. As she discusses in her recent blog post on this ICBC 6% disbursement cap, this is a very important issue in our profession at the moment as it unfairly and significantly impacts an injured claimant’s ability to pursue their claims against ICBC.
The NDP have been clear about why this new law and other laws have been passed – to save ICBC money and make it more profitable at the expense of the injured.
The NDP claimed that ICBC was a dumpster fire that was losing money.
To save ICBC, the NDP claimed that major changes needed to be made including No Fault Insurance which effectively eliminates compensation for the injured and instead provides “benefits” for rehabilitation, but only if approved by ICBC.
We now learn that ICBC is NOT losing money at all. In fact, ICBC reported record profits BEFORE this new law came into effect.
Can you guess how much money ICBC actually made over the last year BEFORE No Fault Insurance and the 6% Disbursement Cap were made law by the NDP?
- 500 million? No, not even close…
- 750 million? No, still not close…
- 900 million? Nope…
- 1 billion? Please, guess higher…
***ICBC recorded an obscene net profit of 1.538 BILLION***
So, if ICBC is not losing money and it is instead extremely profitable, why are we being told that these new laws must be brought in to save ICBC? Why are your legal rights eliminated to make ICBC profitable when it already is? Why hasn’t ICBC’s mismanagement been fixed?
As with other ICBC laws brought in by the NDP over the last few years that were overturned because they were found to be unconstitutional, this 6% disbursement cap is in the process of being challenged as well. We are hopeful that the petition will be heard soon and that we will have some clarity from the presiding judge as to whether this new law is valid. We will continue to keep you updated on this important issue to ICBC claims.
We are proud to be recognized by Canadian Lawyer Magazine for our work in staying on top of new laws impacting our industry and our innocent injured clients.