Advice on insurance in BC for young drivers please.

[sturmy]

Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help?
My son is about to fly into your neck of the woods next month to spend a year working around BC. He has been looking into driving and found he can drive for 6 months on a UK licence. After some internet work it appears your car insurance is a monopoly run by local govt? Very different to our shopping around for the cheap quote over here!
Can anyone give a rough idea what a 19 year old has to pay?
I appreciate it depends on the car and area, but as a rough guess it will be a small hatchback (loaded with bikes!) in the Whistler area!
Also what is a good cheap car to go for in your part of the world (He can't afford a Delica!)

Any info much appreciated

Cheers

Sturmy

[marsgal42]

ICBC has some serious bad points, but they have one good point: they cannot refuse to insure a road-legal vehicle. Many Delica owners in other provinces have to do a lot of shopping around to find somebody who will insure their pride and joy. I still remember Jeremy Clarkson on the phone trying to get a quote on the Veyron he was driving...

A null driving record (the driver's age is irrelevant) starts at the base insurance rate. Screw up and you will pay more. Keep your nose clean and you will pay less, to a maximum discount of 43%. Which I have, but it takes 10 claim-free years to get there.

With decent coverage insurance will start at about $CDN1500 per year, before discounts. This is wildly variable.

There are lots of cheap bangers around. Look for a 1980s or 1990s econobox, like a Toyota Tercel or Nissan Sentra. Maybe a little pickup if you want to carry things - popular here, but the Aussies do utes much better than we do. A lot depends on your definition of "cheap".

...laura

[Jaz]

Hey Sturmy,

I'm actually an Aussie here in Canada on a similar program, and while Laura's answered the main question above, your son may find it interesting to check out a site I've made for Aussies and other Commonwealth guys coming to Canada - http://www.canaussie.com

They get shirty here in BC if you are from elsewhere and you try and drive on your non-BC license for longer than 3 months, so he may find some problems with that. A way to circumvent that is to leave the country every three months or so, which is easy for us as we live in Vancouver and it's only a short way to the border. If he does want to get his BC license (so he can drive for the whole 12 months or whatever), then he's got to be able to prove that he's been driving for more than 2 or 3 years, otherwise they'll stick him back on an N plate with a few restrictions... we found it best to just flit in and out of the country occasionally!

Check this article for a bit more info: http://www.canaussie.com/articles/trans ... -in-canada

[sturmy]

Thanks for the advice both.
I especially like the idea of flitting over the border every three months!
Very helpful.

Cheers

James