Let's Talk about 3rd Party Insurance
 

How many of you have the basic mandatory insurance with ICBC, and then opt out of collision and comprehensive to go with another 3rd party insurance?

Who did you go with?
How much are you paying vs. ICBC's rate?
How is it when it comes to claims? More hassle or more or less the same?

I am using HUB INTL for my CX-3.

Some of the pro's for me: cheaper rate, better customer service (ICBC loves anal), couple of value added services (I think it was related to towing or tires).

Cons: If you're lazy, you have to renew "both" parties at the same time (ICBC + HUB), only certain cars and drivers qualify (car must be relatively new, driver must have X years experience)

Recently bundled my 2 cars from ICBC to Bel Air it went from $3200/year to $2100 for both for more coverage. Pretty pleased with it to be honest. Wife and I have good driving records.

Ran some numbers on my cars last year (in November), and I was honestly surprised by how good my ICBC rates were:

newish 4-door beater w/ ICBC - $550/yr
newish 4-door beater w/ CDI - $721/yr
Miata w/ ICBC - $446/yr
Miata w/ CDI - $623/yr

The above were for optional coverage (collision and comprehensive) as similar as I can get, but they are not identical. I was honestly blown away by how expensive the CDI / Bel Air Direct was.

As mentioned in the other ICBC thread, my last at-fault accident was almost 15 years ago. My last and only ticket in recent memory was a ripoff speeding ticket (10 km over limit) from 4 years ago. So I am running on some sort of 43% discount from ICBC, and should be somewhere fairly deep in the CRS.

I don't remember the exact numbers right now but I have my Optional with Family Insurance through HUB. If I remember correctly I save about $400 and have WAAAAAAY more coverage than I ever did with ICBC. As far as the claims procedures they are pretty straight forward, call it in and everything is quick and simple. I even had an issue just over the border once and they quickly did what they needed to, to send a tow truck over from the Canadian side for me. Excellent service so far. (Knock on wood)

anyone else with recent experience with optional coverage? I see Belair is quite cheaper by doing the online quote, but what's important is what the experience is like having to make a claim when having to deal with 2 different insurance companies and also which body shops you would be allowed to take your car to for repair.

I have basic from ICBC.







And that's all
:fuckyea:

17 years of clean driving with no accidents, only a few speeding tickets.
I keep my cars maintained exceptionally, and they aren't worth more than a few grand, so they'd probably get written off if in a minor fender bender.

Doesn't matter who your insurance company is you can take it to any body shop you wish. As someone who deals with this situation daily. Unless it's a huge savings IMO ICBC is far superior.

Belair was too expensive for me, so I stuck with ICBC.

from what i've seen, private insurance is cheaper if you've been accident free for a long time (15+ years). otherwise icbc for coll+comp is cheaper. speaking from personal experience as well

Thought I'd bump this one. I have a GTI and an M3 both coming due for insurance in April/May and i'm thinking of going private. Is there anyone else in the area other than the companies mentioned above?

^ I use BCAA, you can get a quick online quote from them (members get 10% off). On my civic I only saved $75 but on my sentra I saved almost $300; might not be with it for everyone.

The savings was not worth it for me on most of the vehicles I've owned (accident free 15+ years.) I may be in the minority, but I've always found ICBC customer service to be good.

After ICBC jacked up my rate about 6%, I got a quote online from BCAA since I'm a member and also have home insurance through them. The quote was ~$50 cheaper than ICBC.

I bent over, pulled down my pants and stayed with ICBC.

Family Insurance on my '15 GTI. Ended up being about hundred cheaper I think?

I have BCAA on my FR-S since I'm a BCAA member and my dad does as well for his CX-5. My savings are about $40~ a month compared to ICBC.

Claims are a pain in the ass compared to ICBC, had to use it four times already. 2x accidents and 2x glass (one repair and one replacement). The glass one was pretty pain free as the glass shop did the claim for me.

If you have any "performance" mods then you're better off sticking with ICBC.

I'm only familiar with CDI now Belair but I think most 3rd parties don't really like it or don't want to insure you if you have mods. They need you to declare it or else I assume you're in breach of the contract.

CDI was fine about it but Belair isn't at all

I hope i'm not highjacking, but on a similar topic.....

Does anyone have any suggestions/advice on how to insure a heavily modified car for only 6 months of the year?

(sorry but I'm new to BC and getting to know the ropes of car ownership here)

With ICBC, you are free to insure the car for anywhere between 3 - 12 months at a time. When you do this and do not renew your insurance when it expires, you get to keep your licence plate. There is a small short term (prorated) surcharge if you do not insure for the full year.

The other option is to insure the car for the full year, and cancel insurance when you no longer need it. If you do this, I think you have to forfeit the plate at the time when you cancel insurance. And then when you re-insure the car the next time, you'll need to get new plates, and there is a fee for that (new plates). I think the plate fee is $20?

With ICBC, the legitimate route to insure a modified vehicle is described here:

Modified vehicles

but for most people, I think they just keep to a don't ask, don't tell policy, which can be good or bad, depending on what happened.

For the most part, I have been told that if you have a mild amount of mods that are still of some value (eg. wheels, audio, etc.), you'd still want to declare them. But generally speaking, ICBC is not super strict when dealing with lightly modified vehicles during accident claims.

up

new vehicle quick quote from bcaa is 300-400/yr cheaper than icbc optional (~30% difference)

will get a quote from bel-air tomorrow (10%+ discount for multi-vehicle)

icbc can eat a fat cock

Belair wanted me to install their stupid tracking app on my phone and they were barely cheaper than icbc. Bcaa actually ended up being a fair bit cheaper for me

lol the tracking app is fun
it was encouraging people to run red lights just so they're not abruptly stopping LUL

I think that's for more extensively modified vehicles. I've done a lot to my car but I don't think ICBC would consider any of it extreme enough to count as modified.

Just got my renewal notice for my 2018 Mazda3.

Does anyone have any recent positive/negative experiences with claims with BCAA?
I've never been with 3rd party because on my previous older cars, it wasn't worth the hassle.

BCAA is $366 cheaper than ICBC, particularly the new cost replacement coverage portion ICBC is $578 while BCAA is $154.

Hagerty for the win! All my classics are actually insured to proper values, with no risk of the type of experience I had with ICBC and the '58 beetle fire.