ICBC CRS Q - different discounts for different cars??
 

hey guys. got a (possibly dumb?) question, hoping somebody here can shed some light. bit of a rundown first,

back about 8 years ago, I was in my first and only at fault accident. wrote the car off, was only at a -1 on the CRS scale at the time, so moved up 6 steps to a 55% (yikes, i know) surcharge. during that time while I was at a surcharge, I purchased and insured my genesis coupe. no at fault claims since, full stop. over time this surcharge obviously went down, and eventually went back to a discount. if you calculate it out, having passed 8 years, this would put me at -3 this year. makes sense so far. however, i also remember having a conversation with an ICBC rep shortly after my accident, where I recall her saying that despite being 6 steps up the surcharge ladder, after 3 years i'd be back at neutral - 0 discount and 0 surcharge in other words. so that would put me at -5 instead of -3, as 8 years total have elapsed, 3 of which count toward the surcharge, and 5 of which go towards the discount

i've recently purchased and insured a second car, an old beater that I was originally planning to drive only for the winter, but have since decided to hang onto long term. I renewed the insurance on it today, it's at a -35% discount (-7 in other words). I was inquiring on the genesis at the same time, as I will be putting insurance back on it in a month or two, and was told that the genesis insurance would be at -3 only.

here's where I'm confused - how is it that my 2 cars, both under my name as both the registered owner and principle operator, can have differing discounts? i'm asking for obvious reasons, as the genesis is obviously much more expensive to insure than my 93 civic, so with my CRS discount on the civic being at -7 / -35%, should the genesis not be the same?

my broker seemed to be under the impression that this was due to the genesis having an at fault claim on it (which it doesn't, however I did insure the genesis while my insurance premiums were at surcharge), but that doesn't make any sense to me. does this make sense to anyone else, and could anybody shed some light as to why my discounts are different on my two vehicles? is this an error on ICBC's end that I need to have rectified, or is there something i'm simply missing?

any help or guidance is much appreciated! thanks in advance revscene fam


**CRS scale for reference - http://www.icbc.com/autoplan/costs/Documents/crs.pdf **

i just did a claim history, and alongside my at fault accident back in 2010, i also found this from 4 years ago..

would this have anything to do with it? this is making less sense the more I look. the only claims I have on the genesis are from dec 2012 (rear ended not at fault) and october 2014 (comp claim, therefore also not at fault)

so to make this simple..... the surcharge for the accident only applies to one policy.

your second policy will follow a discount on how many years you have driven.


i was in a similar situation, theres a slight loop hole if your smart about it.

say you get in a car accident and go up to 55% surcharge..

you have a $500 car handy insure that so the 55% surcharge will be placed on that policy.

then you go get your fancy car and insure that, at the discount of years driven.

cancel $500 policy.

upon renewal of fancy car policy the surchaged will be put on that policy. Cancel it.

insure $500 car to move the surcharge to the policy, then insure fancy car, then cancel insurance on $500 car.

now if you call icbc and find out how much money you owe for the at fault claim 8 years ago you can pay that off to elimnate any surcharge to bring your account back to normal.

From what I heard.. like the previous person said, claims only attached to one vehicle/policy at a time.

The CRS discount is technically laid out like a timeline.


In your scenario, I'll make assumptions:
1. Assume you have your DL for at least 8 years
2. Both your cars would be insured at the same time.


1. By looking at the second vehicle, if there were no at fault claims, and if you have vehicle #1 still insured, then the second/third/fourth vehicles would be entitled to your full DL history.
2. If you only have the one vehicle/policy, then you will always be a few years behind until you reach CRS level -20(43%). It is possible to have different vehicles/policies with different CRS levels.
3. If you cancel the plate which has the claim affecting, the claim will move to either 1. a new plate you take out or 2. if its a more recent claim, it can move and affect on the renewal policy.

There are ways to avoid/trick the system, however ICBC can simply track what your doing and possibly do something about it.

that in itself is hugely helpful, i was unaware that a surcharge only falls onto one policy. i've never quite grasped that loophole, i've heard of it before, but never really grasped the concept. can you break that down for me into what i should be doing with my civic and genesis?

currently my genesis is insured for a storage policy only (so it's not plated), and my civic has basic + TP liability on it, at a -7 discount (shouldn't this already move the surcharge to the civic, as the genesis is now "uninsured", or is it because there's a storage policy on it?). when i go to insure the genesis again, it will be at -3 discount only (from what my broker said). so then what i should be doing is.. cancelling the insurance on the civic (so i have no insurance whatsoever on any car), and reinsuring the civic first (to place the surcharge onto the civic) and when i go to insure the genesis say the following day, the full DL history will apply on the genesis?

Would you need to get full comprehensive and collision, or is basic enough?

let me throw a wrench into this a bit more then, as it seems there's more than a handful of people here who know what they're talking about. the storage policy on the genesis is effective until march 5th. I reinsured my civic today for an additional 6 months, and did nothing with the policy on the genesis - so effective march 5th it is fully uninsured. does this mean the surcharge will automatically move to the civic on march 5th, and as long as I insure the genesis after march 5th, I will receive full DL history discount on the genesis instead of the civic?

second question alongside that would be - would the amount I paid for the 6 months on the civic then not be enough, as the discount would lessen? do I actually have to uninsure and reinsure the civic for this to take full effect?

I appreciate the help hugely guys, thanks again :D

If you renewed your Civic today and the CRS on it is -7(35%), even if you wait until your storage expires, if you new plate the Genesis, the Genesis will pick up the at-fault claim. The reason is that the claim is 'dangling' and is waiting to get picked up on a new plate.

//

hmmm I never knew that, I was under the impression that you needed to either choose one or the other during the time of the claim.

your question has me thinking.. lol i was at an at fault in 2011 which brought me to a +55% surcharge as well, eventuall the years passed now and im currently sitting at -25%, but i was told that they made a mistake when i got new plates for my new car, and next year theyre going to actually bring me back to either 15 or 20% lol :pokerface:

my at fault accident was in 2010, and i'm only back at -15% now, so if your at fault accident was a year after, you should only be at -10% this year. not a surcharge, but not -25% either. probably some overlap with having multiple cars insured?? in any case, you shouldn't be at +15%

thing is i never had more than 1 car, they prob messed up in the plate changes (switch a lot and had custom as well) and i meant i would be at minus 15-20% oh well i got to have cheaper insurance for one year right ?? lol

Ok wait hold on guys. I'm so confused. I was in the same spot as you, went from -5% to +55% or something like that since I had an at fault accident.

BUT, after 3 years you go back to what you were. So sure for 3 years I was paying out the ass but then it went back down. Not only that, but I believe you still accumulate the % discount every year when you're on surcharge.

Why after 8 years are you still paying for that accident

did not read other than first... so if it hasn't already been talked about, from my understanding the 3 years back to 0 discount only applies if you are off the road for those 3 years... so no cars insured under your name. Otherwise you just go back down 5 percent a year from highest surcharge

Just taking a look in your situation. It sounds like you should be eligible for either -20% or 25% for your Genesis. I have a feeling its something to do with ICBC's internal CRS system being unable to pick up extra discount that you're suppose to have.

When you insured for your Civic for the -7/-35%, (which should not have affected by previous claims as you have been paying of the claims via the Genesis' insurance) did your broker call in ICBC to check for your double check your record for the the proper discount?

I always has 1 or 2 cars insured for the three years, and it went back to what it was prior to accidents.

I think you (usually) have to do it within 1 year of the claim date / accident.

that's what I thought as well. regardless of surcharge amount I was told that after 3 years it'd reset back to 0. meaning I should be at least -4 on the Genesis now. is it worth calling customer service myself and inquiring? will I get anywhere, or is it better done through a broker?

Brokers are useless. Call icbc yourself and discuss with them (tgen go to a broker to adjust the insurance)

You can only be in surcharge for 3 years. It then resets to 0.

It's tricky and possible

Remove all policy's , then start with the civic then the Genesis

Waiting for CRS to chime in.

And sometimes this doesn't work at all and they send you a correction in the mail instructing you to go back to auto plan to
Fix it.

Ahh I know about this too.

Everybody has a special date where the new year for discount applies. (Typically your birthday) if you insure a car before this special date you won't get the extra 5 percent, unless you go back after the date and do a 1 time only policy date change.

Icbc needs all the money they can get especially right now. The broker must know what he's doing, but with my recent experience a lot of the best brokers have moved on and now the new ones have no idea what your talking about. Most just sea with renewals or new plates.

Try importing cars from Japan or seized us customs cars they stare at you like your doing something shady