A Surrey man is blaming ICBC for delays with his stolen vehicle claim and for racking up hundreds of dollars in rental costs.
Jeff Rivett told Global News that his truck was stolen on Oct. 13 and was found two weeks later.
However, Rivett said it has now been more than a month and his truck is still in a storage yard.
“It was brought to Clover Towing yard in Surrey, and I was getting calls from the RCMP every week asking me when I was going to come pick it up and I got a bill from Clover Towing for about $1,600 because it had been sitting there so long,” Rivett said.
He added that an estimator had now looked at his truck, but it was in a Coquitlam tow yard and he didn’t have the keys so he couldn’t look inside.
“So I’m here today in the Surrey location with the key trying to drop that off in hopes they get to Coquitlam in time for the estimator to have a look at it before he goes on Christmas vacation,” Rivett said.
He does not know when the truck was moved from Surrey to Coquitlam.
Rivett said the process seems wasteful and inefficient.
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“The staff at ICBC have actually been, for the most part, friendly and equally as frustrated with it,” he said.
“You know, the estimator I talked to yesterday was expressing that they’re just so far behind and they’re just so understaffed and they just have no way of dealing with these things.”
Meanwhile, he is still paying his monthly insurance bill.
Global News reached out to ICBC for answers and was told Rivett’s claim should not take this long. They say it’s because of an error made by staff and a hold that was initially put on the claim should have been removed long ago, but it wasn’t.
“Once we recognized this, we took the hold off,” Greg Harper, a spokesperson for ICBC said.
“We’ve apologized to him and we’re moving forward with his claim. We’ve also let him know his vehicle is a total loss.”
ICBC said there are no claim backlogs or staffing shortages.
“This was due to an administrative error, this isn’t something that happens on a regular basis,” Harper added.
Rivett said he wanted to speak out because it appears there is a lot of money being spent unnecessarily.
“All of us share in the cost of the premiums,” he said.
“And the more ICBC spends and the more that they’re spending on this and on all rental cars and whatever else, the higher the premiums are going to be for all of us.”
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