BC’s Attorney General says he agrees that insurance rates for some drivers in the province are still too high.

However, speaking on the NL Morning News, David Eby says the plan is still to have higher risk drivers pay more into the system.

“If bad drivers pay their actual actuarial cost to the system, they would be very significant increases for higher risk drivers – people with impaired driving, with excessive speeding and relatively inexperienced drivers,” he said. “So inexperienced drivers are still being subsidized by more experienced drivers and the average rate shift is about $200 in each direction.”

Eby went on to say that if people feel they are being unfairly treated, they should contact either ICBC or the BC Ombudsperson.

“Because it is complicated and there may be people who are unfairly assessed under the new system and we are certainly happy to have a look at that because the goal is simply to make sure that higher risk drivers are paying more and lower risk drivers are paying less to recognize the fact that they have driving histories where they haven’t been in collisions and they haven’t received tickets for driving infractions that are these more traumatic infractions.”

As for what could be done to reduce rates, Eby says there are still a number of things the province can do.

“We are competitive with the other two private jurisdictions – Ontario and Alberta – but we shouldn’t we competitive with them. We should be competitive with the public insurance jurisdictions – Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Quebec, and so I think there are lots of opportunities for us to bring rates down that we have to pursue,” said Eby.

“But our first job in the first two years, and it’s not done was to stabilize the finances at ICBC.”

He was speaking after some young drivers say ICBC’s new rate structure is unfair towards people with little experience on the road.