How Long Does it Take to Settle a Case with ICBC?

One of the most common questions we get is “How long will my ICBC Claim take to settle”? At John Mickelson Law Corporation, when we file a claim against ICBC or another insurance company, we seek compensation for pain and suffering, loss of past and future income, cost of treatments, and out-of-pocket expenses. When a client has been injured, we don’t know how much time they will miss from work, how much treatment they will require, or whether they may need to change occupations. More importantly, we cannot prove these losses to ICBC until we have a final prognosis.

We have to wait until our client has maximized their recovery before settling their ICBC claim. Once they have either fully recovered, or exhausted all treatment options, we have a better idea of what their life will look like moving forward. At this stage, we begin to assess the value of the injury claim.

Some personal injury cases can be very complex to assess. For example, a person might sustain physical injuries in an accident, and go on to develop major depression that prevents them from working at their job. We would then need to determine whether the depression resulted from the accident, or from some other cause; this would require an assessment by an expert psychiatrist. It can also be difficult to determine how much future income a person will lose; this depends on their future career path, retirement age, and pension losses. In order to quantify these losses, we will sometimes obtain an economist’s report to assess this part of the claim.

Once we work with the necessary experts and obtain their reports, our ICBC lawyers review the entire case. Many factors come into play in deciding how much the case is worth, and our ICBC lawyers have the experience needed to advise our clients on when to take a settlement offer, and when to take ICBC to court.

Call today for a free consultation: 604-684-0040.

Go back to Blog