A Supreme Court of British Columbia judge has certified a class action lawsuit on behalf of injured claimants and ratepayers against ICBC and the Government of BC in relation to making illegal ICBC payments to MSP contrary to the law.
In relation to injured claimants, these illegal payments by ICBC are especially egregious for the severely and catastrophically injured. As part 7 benefits have a maximum amount payable for essential medical therapies (physiotherapy, counseling, physical therapy, etc), prescriptions, mobility devices and home modifications tailored to their significant disabilities, these illegal payments by ICBC were taken out of injured claimants’ part 7 benefits. Once these injured claimants reached the maximum limit, ICBC then stopped any further payments of part 7 benefits resulting in these injured claimants being left alone to fend for themselves. As a result of these illegal payments that ICBC took out of the injured claimant’s part 7 benefits, they were wrongly denied further funding by ICBC for rehabilitation who wrongly advised them that they had reached the maximum limit when in reality they had not.
In short, the funding injured claimants should have received from ICBC was instead used illegally by ICBC to pay MSP which benefited ICBC and the provincial government. The class action seeks recovery for injured claimants of the hundreds of millions of dollars made in illegal payments by ICBC.
The other effect of this illegal ICBC and Government of BC scheme is that these illegal payments to MSP have cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driven up insurance costs unnecessarily and unlawfully. Instead of responding to this and rightfully reimbursing the countless British Columbians the inflated insurance rates they have been charged for years, our provincial NDP instead changed the law on a whim to disallow this claim from proceeding. With this and in addition to removing your rights to compensation after a car accident through ICBC No Fault Insurance, it is even more clear that the NDP does not care about legal rights of British Columbians despite what they tell you. This new law effectively ignores British Columbians by allowing ICBC to keep the money you were overcharged on.
You can find out more details of the ICBC MSP Class Action online.
There are also several news articles you can read which provide more information about the certification of the injured claimants class action against ICBC.