Thank you for welcoming ICBC to appear before this committee.
My name is Kelly Aimers, and I am the chief actuary at the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, or ICBC. With me is my colleague, Shabnem Afzal, who is ICBC's director of road safety.
I would first like to recognize that we are at ICBC's head office in North Vancouver, British Columbia, on the traditional ancestral indigenous territories, both unceded and treated, of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh first nations.
ICBC is a provincial Crown corporation mandated by the Insurance Corporation Act, the Insurance Act and the Motor Vehicle Act to provide universal, compulsory auto insurance to drivers in British Columbia. In addition, ICBC provides British Columbians with optional auto insurance products, vehicle registration services, driver's licence services. We work with external stakeholders on road safety projects and auto crime initiatives.
I would like to applaud the work of this committee and all of the participants. We support the ongoing efforts to date and look forward to enhancing initiatives to prevent vehicles from being stolen within Canada.
According to statistics provided by B.C.'s integrated municipal provincial auto crime team, otherwise referred to as IMPACT, in 2023, B.C. had its lowest number of auto theft incidents across the province since 2018. B.C. had 7,538 auto theft incidents reported to police, a 10% decrease from 2022, with declines posted across the province.
Vehicle theft is covered under optional comprehensive insurance from ICBC or other private insurers.
In 2023, of those 7,500 auto theft incidents reported to police, 6,255 of them were reported to ICBC, with an average cost of $5,700. This average cost also includes the deductible for a stolen vehicle claim reported to ICBC. While there has been a slight decrease in stolen vehicle claims reported to ICBC from 2022, the average cost of these vehicles has increased.
While ICBC has the majority of the optional insurance market, I want to emphasize that these are just claims reported to ICBC. Claims can also be reported to other optional insurance carriers, and some motorists may not even have optional insurance. Further, these preliminary financial figures and incident counts may continue to settle as claims are closed.
With that, I would like to pass it to my colleague, Shabnem Afzal, who is ICBC's director of road safety.