Insurance settlement

ICBC takes a really long time before you will see any money for your claim. Firstly, the car gets town to your home and collects dust (in my case snow) for about a month. Then ICBC tows it to the facility where the adjuster would review the damages to assess if the car is worth being repaired. This also takes about a month. Once, the adjuster decides on the damages they will either tow it to the repair facility of your choice or in my case, it was a total loss. That means the total damages of the car approaches how much that car is worth and ICBC decided not to bother fixing it. In that case, your claim is passed to the estimator to write you a check for the car, this process also takes closer to the month.

Determining Market Price

ICBC's estimator determines the payment amount based on the same car that is currently or just has left the market. For me, they shared an evaluation report (you have to ask for it) provided by the 3rd party that comprised of 5 cars of the same make that are similar in mileage and of the same year. Then they will average that number up to determine the settlement amount. There is some legroom to fight for a higher valuation if you have recently undergone repairs. Note: Don't forget that crashing the car also entitles you to receive the 12% tax back for BC.

Story Resolution

In my experience I got back CAD 25***$. From my standpoint that was a win, since I got a car, drove it for two years and made 25% return on crashing it. All things considered it took more than 3 month before the check arrived in the my mail.

My heart goes out to you if you have recently lost your vehicle and have to deal with the ICBC painful process.

This concludes my story about my Subaru Crosstreck. Stay tuned for the next chapter where I will delve into Lease to Own strategy.