In recent weeks, the NDP government has announced it intends to make changes to ICBC in order to salvage the corporation from it’s current state of being a “dumpster fire.”
It appears one of the changes will be a minor injury cap on motor vehicle insurance claims. (Another article on the “cap” to follow.) These are not unique to Canada. Several other provinces have legislated similar caps if the injuries are deemed to be “minor”. The goal, of course, is to limit the amount one can recover for pain and suffering from a car accident claim.
There have been numerous news articles on this topic of late. One common theme is that there are more lawsuits than ever being filed in BC. The suggestion is that people are trying to scam 
the system to get more money than they deserve from relatively minor “fender-benders”. One article even suggested that people have a lottery mentality when they get into an accident. They paint injured individuals as greedy and even deceitful for simply asking to be compensated fairly for their injuries from a corporation that they themselves fund. The lawyers who fight to get them fair compensation are viewed even worse. But why? Who decides what is fair compensation for an injury in British Columbia? Answer: The Supreme Court of British Columbia, based on proper medical evidence.
Without an injury lawyer, ICBC has been known to offer less than 10% of what an injured person is fairly entitled, which may explain why more and more people are seeking legal representation. Unfortunately, even after retaining a lawyer, ICBC often refuses to offer fair compensation to the injured victim until the case is about to go to trial. Why is that? Answer: Because ICBC knows that once they enter the doors of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, a judge will decide the matter fairly. Perhaps if ICBC treated injured individuals fairly, it would not be a “dumpster fire”.
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