Indecision

Does anyone know what the process is for appealing a decision made by an inspector at ICBC? I'm having a rotten summer with both cars. Long story short, took a day off to go to Indy on the way back some owner let his dog off the leash he ran right into the street the minute he's off. There was shadow on the road so I didn't even see him come out. No time to react. http://www.gismo.ca:8080/badDog/

I thought the accident is as simple as calling my insurance and pay the $300 deductible and they'll have the car fix. Apparently not. After attending to the dog and helping the owner get the dog onto his truck and to the vette I looked at the car and well it looks ok just a big dent at the front so I didn't want to block traffic and tried to drive it home. Half way home the temperature gauge shot up so I pulled over and called a tow truck. Called ICBC happy jolly they will cover for the repair. Brought the car in for the inspection, a few days later the inspector called back and said he's not sure if there's engine damage or not. But if there is they will not cover for it. Almost 2 weeks now, the mechanic just called yesterday and said there may be engine damage they're taking it apart to have a look. Should there be engine damage I want to ask them a few questions:
1. If I rear-end someone am I to park the car in the middle of the street if the engine is still running and block traffic until a tow truck arrive or move my car and risk engine damage?
2. If the inspector cannot see the extend of the damages from outside how am I to know from looking at it to know I should not drive it. I didn't do 4yrs of university in mechanical engineering. I should have.
3. It's only a dog, the engine was still running, no funny noise, I turned off the car as soon as I saw the temperature gauge shot up.

Yes the radiator started emptying while waiting for the tow truck and it continued to empty out while parking in the driveway at home. Look at the pics. It took 2 days to empty out on the driveway before another tow truck came and took it to ICBC.

9yrs of paying insurance and I have yet to use it and now they're going cheap on me

Sorry for the ranting......anyone know if the decision is final or can I appeal or get a lawyer or someone to help with this? thanks.

Monkei

The title of this thread makes me laugh... There is NOTHING appealing about ICBC
On a serious note, I believe you can fight ICBC if you feel their decision is unfair. I'm not exactly sure what the procedure on this would be (hopefully some other members may have some suggestions), and it might be best to look into hiring a lawyer to find out.
You mentioned that you have never had to use insurance in the past 9 years... I'm afraid you are about to find out just how crooked ICBC can be. In the world of business, having a monopoly is illegal (unless the government does it), and it sucks that we have to use ICBC because they will do everything in their power, not to pay for your car. It's absolutely absurd that you have to pay high premiums for so many years, just in case something happens... but when it does happen, they try to back out of paying for the damages.
I really do suggest fighting ICBC on this case, and I wish you the best of luck. Like I said, hopefully some other board members can give you some actual advise... my post turned into more of a rant, than anything else.

geppetto

Hey Cong, sorry to hear about the problems. Mel and I are still fighting with ICBC over her injury claim. You know Melody well enough to know that she wouldn't fake an injury, but we have had absolutely no success in dealing with them. In anycase, there is a procedure for appealing a decision. You can read about it here:

ICBC

Just remember, the appeal process is an in house team that I would think would be more prone to rubber stamoping the initial denial. Hiring a lawyer can be very expensive, you might want to consider taking them to small claims court.

Good luck.

Indecision

Thanks for the URL Sean! Looks like we're in step 1. We're in the process of getting in touch with the supervisor. But according to the customer service guy it doesn't look good because of what the inspector put on his notes. I'm very interested in sitting down and getting a copy of what this highly trained inspector said about the car and his "visual inspection" of the car. Even as of today neither does the mechanic nor ICBC know exactly what is damaged. But every time we called all we got was "you should have known not to drive the car." It's almost like an airline telling people "you shouldn't have gotten on that plane" there was a storm outside.

My god they still haven't dealt with it yet? They're starting to treat everyone like fraud and criminals. This is making me sick.

Louis__XIII

[QUOTE=Monkei,Aug 11 2004, 11:27 AM] . . . . . In the world of business, having a monopoly is illegal (unless the government does it), and it sucks that we have to use ICBC because they will do everything in their power, not to pay for your car.

Indecision

You're right Sean.. we got hold of the Supervisor and it didn't take more than a minute for him to tell us to "go to the Fair Practices Review."

He didn't even bother look at the photo or anything just a "how can you not know there's major damage?"

geppetto

I just looked at your pictures. Are you sure it was a dog and not a moose?

Indecision

The dog is the size of a moose! Finally had a chance to look at the damage with the bumper off. All frontal support beams are bend