In personal injury cases there are four different types of offers that can be made to ICBC and insurers: pre-litigation oral offers; pre-litigation written offers; post-litigation oral offers; and post-litigation written offers. We can break down written offers into informal and formal offers to settle. This article will briefly explain how an ICBC claimant can…
If you settle an injury claim with ICBC after a car accident, and receive lifetime payments from an annuity, should those payments be considered income for the purpose of child support payment obligations? We help answer that question in the following case review. K.T. suffered serious injuries in a motor vehicle accident and entered into a settlement…
Settlement money for pain and suffering awards are excluded from family property division in British Columbia so your ex-wife or ex-husband is not entitled to half. However, it is critically important in a family law proceeding to have evidence and demonstrate to the court that the ICBC settlement award is in fact excluded. As a personal injury…
As a personal injury lawyer dealing with ICBC since 1995, having settled hundreds of injury cases, there are three certainties I have come to expect in every case. No matter the age, sex, or work ability of the claimant, here are three realities claimants should know about ICBC settlements: The claimant will be required to sign…
In this personal injury case a formal ICBC offer to settle in the amount of $77,400 was accepted by the claimant just two weeks before an 8 day trial. ICBC conducted surveillance of the claimant starting the day after the defendant made the offer to settle. The defendant’s therefore claimed the cost of the investigation…
The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC, is a government created corporate monopoly for third party auto insurance. ICBC has recently began to use its’ power, after injury claimants accept an offer of settlement, to refuse injury claimants the cost of diagnosis, assessment and treatment of personal injuries(ICBC denial of costs provokes court comment). In this…
As a personal injury lawyer since 1995 I have had many personal injury claimants call and regret settling their ICBC injury claims without a lawyer. It is very difficult to re-open a case after a settlement agreement release has been signed by the claimant. If the injury claimant has sought the advice of a lawyer…
This significant unanimous decision has effectively done away with double costs for ICBC and other disability insurance companies in civil claims where the plaintiff obtains an award for less than an offer to settle (C.P. v. RBC Life Insurance Company, 2015 BCCA 30). The important issue in this BC Court of Appeal case was the availability of double costs…
The Insurance Corporation of BC, ICBC, seems to have adopted the practice of settling ICBC claims and then fighting the claimant’s necessary and reasonable litigation expenses after settlement. However, the following ICBC injury claim stands for the proposition that claimants have a duty to ensure that all areas of the injury claim are supported with…
In this personal injury case the Claimant made an offer to settle which was rejected by ICBC (the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia). He proceeding to trial and beat his offer by $920. However the Judge was not satisfied that the claimant’s formal offer was one that ICBC ought reasonably to have accepted (Saopaseuth v.…