RDCK director pushes for rural fire insurance change
By John Boivin Local Journalism Initiative
A director of the Regional District of the Central Kootenays says rural residents will soon face huge increases to their fire insurance premiums- and many won’t be able to get insurance protection at all.
Andy Davidoff made the comment at Thursday’s monthly RDCK Board meeting in Nelson, telling his fellow directors he would like the RDCK to approach other regional organizations to investigate whether there could be alternatives to commercial insurance companies.
“We have areas in the Regional District where people can’t get insurance,” says Davidoff, the director for Electoral Area I, which covers rural Castlegar.
“I don’t think it’s fair you can’t get insurance.”
Davidoff plans to make a pitch at the next RDCK meeting in September to seek approval for the organization to go to an upcoming meeting of the Columbia Basin Trust. They’ll ask the Trust to support a study by the Rural Development Institute into the viability of public alternatives to private fire insurance in rural areas.
“We’re going to ask them to look at it, not commit to it,” Davidoff told the RDCK Director’s meeting on Thursday.
Davidoff first became concerned about changes to rural fire insurance in 2013, when residents of Glade, a community of 350 serviced by a ferry, were told they could no longer get fire insurance as they were deemed ‘not protected’.
The ruling was made by an agency that determines coverage criteria for insurance agencies. That agency, the Fire Underwriters Survey, Davidoff says, had a “brutal” meeting with RDCK directors on the issue.
Glade was eventually given ‘partial protected’ status, and one insurance company now provides coverage. But Davidoff says the issue flagged him that rural residents were facing serious changes to their ability to get insurance.
He says changes to insurance regulations about the distance a home can be from a fire station, and recent losses from disasters like the fires in Fort McMurray this spring, mean rural homeowners will find it harder and harder to get fire insurance. He predicts rates will double, or even quadruple, in the near future.
“So what’s coming?” Davidoff asks.
“That’s worrisome to us. We’re trying to be fair, we fully appreciate how business works, you don’t enter into business if you’re not making profits.
“But there are so few insurance companies left, if you have a not-for-profit insurance company you may get a better shake and maybe slightly more liberal underwriting guidelines.”
Davidoff and other RDCK politicians have received support from the Union of BC Municipalities and elsewhere, but says provincial insurer ICBC and the government have declined to move forward on the issue.
If there’s going to be change, Davidoff says the Regional District, working with other local agencies like the Columbia Basin Trust, are the best options forward.
“If we sit back and do nothing then business will continue the way it does,” he says. “But if we advocate for logical alternatives to what the insurance industry is doing, and talk to entities of the viability of having our own, maybe the insurance industry will pay attention- and they have.”
The director points to agencies like the Municipal Insurance Association, formed to help municipalities get better and cheaper coverage through self-insurance, as a model worth pursuing. He admits it will still be some time, and may require changes to legislation, before his dream becomes a reality.
In the meantime, even discussing the issue of possible alternatives to private insurance is helping bring the industry to the table to at least talk about providing coverage that is reflective of rural reality.
“Were trying to keep the [Fire Underwriter’s Survey]’s feet to the fire- pun intended- and ICBC and the IBC (Insurance Bureau of Canada), and the province, and keep reminding them rural BC needs to be treated fairly.
“We have to do all of that to protect our communities.”
Davidoff will present his draft brief for the Columbia Basin Trust to the RDCK board at its next meeting in September.
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