Purchasing a car from Ontario
 

Here is what I need help with:

-I am looking at purchasing a used car from Ontario
-I would like to have it registered in BC
-I just want insurance for fire and theft
-I have no issue with paying provincial taxes
-What I want to know is if it is possible to have the car registered in BC but stored in Ontario? Does ICBC allow this? Basically the car will be restored in Ontario but I want to make sure it is insured in case anything happens.

Thanks!

I'll try to answer this as best as possible and based on my understanding of what you are trying to do with the information you've provided.

If you want to register the vehicle with ICBC and have ICBC insure it for fire and theft, you'd need to ship the car over to BC first, go through the vehicle inspection process, get it insured for fire/theft (storage insurance, I suppose) and then ship it back to Ontario. Does this make sense financially and for your time? Probably not.

What you can do instead of purchase the car as a BC resident and register the vehicle through Service Ontario and find an insurer who will insure it for you for fire/theft for your storage address in Ontario.

This part might be tricky because you would need to obviously sign some papers with Service Ontario. Given COVID-19, that might get tricky so depending on how you want to sort this out. You may either need to fly in to do the sale in person or call Service Ontario as to what your options are. Worst case is you may need a lawyer to represent you to plow through the process.

In regards to insuring the vehicle this route, I recommend you call around to ask insurance providers if they will insure the vehicle for you (I can't see why not.) I'll just throw some names out but Intact, Aviva, TD Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, The Co-Operators, and Onlia are popular, but this is just to name a few. Keep your options open as there are hundreds of insurance providers to choose from. Personally, I use Intact Insurance and have shopped around before. I like them for their customer service and use BrokerLink as my agent. They've been good to me, but Intact is not always the cheapest.

You may want to post what car this is for. Depending on the age/rarity, Hagerty or Chubb Insurance may insure you and their rates can be pretty good (Chubb is premium but you get premium service and no nonsense whatsoever.) I've heard bait-and-switch with TD but I've never veered from Intact. Any how, I hope this helps. Good luck!

yes storage is valid even outside of BC
icbc sees it no differently and if going through private it might just be a few bucks monthly more than if you were to store within BC

Does the car need to be BC registered first before you can get ICBC storage insurance for it? My hunch is yes.

If it needs to be BC registered that probably means you'll need to have BC valid inspection, which means the car will need to be in BC for inspection.

It is for a 1994 Supra TT 6-Speed. If it can just be registered in Ontario and insured in Ontario, despite living in B.C. that would be super ideal. I thought if you are a resident of BC, it has to be registered there.

You should be okay to register and insure the car in Ontario. You won't need to insure it through ICBC.

Call Service Ontario and call some of the insurance companies to map out the process and you should be ok.

Given that this can be considered a "classic" you can try hitting up Hagerty Insurance Canada to see if they will insure it. Their fire and theft policies are very cheap. Let us know how it goes (I am curious myself.)

If you bring the car here and you live here, and icbc finds out that you purposefully insured in a different territory than where you live/drive full time they can void insurance iirc

ICBC will insure the vehicle under something called "Territory Z" classification. Whether that covers the car sitting in Ontario is another story and I predict unlikely. My very limited understanding of Territory Z is only for vehicles in BC.

^
Edit: I am partially wrong about Territory Z. See here - https://www.sapling.com/8692489/territory-insurance

Right but didn’t people used to exploit the “territory x or z” loophole back in the day with aircare? And if they learned you live in richmond, work in richmond, primarily park the vehicle in richmond, yet have your car insured to an address in Prince George, didn’t that used to cause issues for when people had to make claims?

It’s really testing my memory. I’m sure some of the older members here would know more

Yes, but OP's situation is different where he's leaving the car parked in Ontario.