Has ICBC told you that you don’t have a claim because your car accident was “low velocity impact” or “minimal impact”?
Being told you don’t have a claim from ICBC can be a slap in the face when you’re injured after a car accident. I see many clients who believed they no longer could make a claim for their injuries? Don’t worry, if you were hurt from your car accident, you can still pursue your injury claim. ICBC’s ‘no crash, no cash’ (aka LVI) policy is merely an ICBC policy. It is NOT the law.
Applying LVI logic, damages for injuries would be paid based on the amount of damage to a vehicle. Yet, if you end up in a car accident where both cars are damaged beyond repair, ICBC will then say that you need to prove to them your injuries before they will pay out compensation. British Columbia courts require the same, namely that you prove your injuries. Fortunately, British Columbia courts say the same regardless of the amount of vehicle damage in a crash. The fact is, if you’re hurt as a result of a car crash, and you can prove more likely than not that you’re hurt, then you are entitled to damages for your harms and losses.
ICBC’s LVI policy is not based on science. Arthur Croft and Michael Freeman in their article “Correlating crash severity with injury risk, injury severity, and long-term symptoms in low velocity motor vehicle collision” conclude that “Property damage is neither a valid predictor of acute injury risk nor of symptom duration…the level of vehicle property damage appears to be an invalid construct for injury presence, severity, or duration.”
ICBC’s LVI policy is not law. In the case Orrell v. Lynch [2008] B.C.J. No. 2394 (para. 42) Williams J. states:
While there may be some common-sense basis to conclude that a collision of slight force may be less likely to result in injuries of similar severity to an incident where the forces were obviously greater, that is certainly not a principle of law nor is it a proposition in logic that should determine the outcome of such a claim.
If you received a letter from ICBC denying your claim because it was, in ICBC’s opinion, a low velocity impact, it does not mean you don’t have a case. Science and British Columbia courts don’t recognize the low velocity impact so you can still pursue your claim for damages for your harms and losses.
[1] Croft, A, Freeman, M: Correlating crash severity with injury risk, injury severity, and long-term symptoms in low velocity motor vehicle collisions. Med Sci Monit, 2005; 11(10):RA
