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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

State run car insurance monopolies exist. Check out BC Canada. As a customer, it’s slightly more than I was paying in the US, but less than I would pay in neighboring provinces. There are some weirdnesses (have to renew/sign up in person through a private agent) and concessions to politics (insurance agents as mentioned, and senior citizens are guaranteed a discount regardless of risk profile).

It works, but it isn’t leaps and bounds better. It’s still possible for an accident that you aren’t at fault for to absolutely ruin your financial life.

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I think ICBC is worse than the private options available in other provinces.

Auto shops are charging them through the nose to fix all these German cars that get in accidents, and then the premiums for those drivers never go up by any significant amount.

ICBC had a bunch of money they had collected from premiums, 800 million or so I recall, and the government took it from them to flitter away on whatever, so the surplus paid in insurance premiums becomes another form of tax, Instead of ICBC being able to reduce premiums or needing to compete to offer the best price

AFAIK the premiums we pay are lower than other provinces. I know that Alberta and Ontario are higher.

The BC liberals did loot the ICBC insurance pool of 1.2 billion dollars calling it ‘dividend payments’, which realistically should have been premium refunds. When the NDP regained power they passed legislature to prevent this in the future, and ensure that ICBC operates as a nonprofit, which is why there were several premium refunds throughout COVID.

The unfortunate part is that ICBC doesn’t have a very complex premium structure. So you do end up with silly shit like a car with high cost of repair being insured for the same amount as a much cheaper to repair car. As a monopoly they are also required to insure all drivers no matter how bad the risk which means that we all pay to keep people on the road who should not be driving.

I was paying to ICBC twice as much as I was paying to Progressive in US. And yes, that's with me brining my good driving record to Canada.

Insurance coverage in Canada was higher, but I couldn't go any lower.

I heard, that the province make the ICBC to spend money on road safety measures. I don't think US insurance companies has that expense.

Not sure when you moved, but ICBC changed a bunch of how they calculate payouts in 2019. My insurance went down to slightly higher than US rates after that, but used to be way higher.

ICBC does do road safety campaigns, but it also handles vehicle registration and licensing as well as driver testing and licensing. I don’t know if any of that extra stuff is funded by insurance premiums or if it is all from taxes and fees.

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