A provincial crown corporation, The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), was established in the year 1973. The objective of creating such an organization was to protect third party obligation, hit and run cases, and other claims of accidents. No motorist can avoid being involved with ICBC as every driver of British Columbia must have auto insurance. However, the question is, Does ICBC Debt Go Away?
ICBC debt: Does ICBC Debt Go Away
There is no denying of the fact that accidents can occur anytime. Generally, no one plans for an accident, especially a motor accident. Even if you have insurance coverage, you can end up on the wrong side because of the violation of your policy clauses, intractable damage, or unlawful activity during or before the accident.
Even a small accident can land you into a situation where you might owe a significant amount of money to the ICBC. As mentioned earlier, no one plans for an accident hence might not have enough income to pay the required amount in the form of debt to the ICBC.
There is no way that ICBC debt goes away automatically after a certain period. An ICBC debt means a debt one needs to pay to the government. The concerning part is that no statute of limitations will be in effect to save you from paying the balance as ICBC has got a lot of options to realize the outstanding sum.
ICBC is not entitled to get into any direct deal with the defaulter that might lower the amount supposed to be paid. The corporation is even harsher when it comes to recovering amounts that it had already paid against an accident.
There is more bad news for a defaulter, ICBC also has the authority to reject the application for renewal of your driving license or insurance coverage till you solve all payment-related disputes with them.
What to do when an individual has to pay ICBC, and that seems inevitable?
It is always advisable to seek an expert lawyer’s advice to avoid legal actions and paying more than what you are supposed to pay. If you think that you are unfairly asked to pay the amount, you should seek the advice of a lawyer and engage him to fight for your case with ICBC.
In case you are unable to pay the debt, no point running away from ICBC; instead, you should let them know your financial situation and struggle you are going through to pay them back. In most of the cases, you can expect to have some fruitful suggestions from ICBC as to how you can look into various options of making repayments.
How to get rid of the ICBC debt completely?
There are ways that you can try to get yourself completely discharged from ICBC debts. If you think the debt is not manageable, you should meet with a LIT ( Licensed Insolvency Trustee). LIT would evaluate your financial status and accordingly suggest your course of actions to be cleared off the ICBC debt. For more information about what insolvency trustees can do for you, visit this link: https://www.bankruptcy-canada.ca/licensed-insolvency-trustee
Another way is to submit a consumer proposal to ICBC that might give you a chance to pay the debt over a prolonged period or avail a more comfortable payment procedure. One thing that has to be taken into consideration while going for engaging LIT or submitting a consumer proposal is that getting a driving license or insurance policy renewed can be a tricky proposition during the period when the proceedings for the same is ongoing.
Besides, your credit rating will be severely affected if you decide to go for declaring yourself bankrupt or submit a consumer proposal.
Conclusion
To summarize what has been discussed so far, it can be said that do not take things lightly once ICBC asks you to pay for something that they think you should. Recently, they have become very aggressive, and they have every mandate to realize the debts.
So, if you want to have a driving license and insurance so that you can drive legally, paying the debts off is the best available option.
