ICBC - Where Your Money Goes

As I was going over the 2011 Provincial Budget, I got thinking about how many people think that their ICBC insurance premiums are somehow paying for all the roads in BC. That is simply not the case.

ICBC spent $56 million in 2009 directly for road safety projects. When you think about all the roads in BC, that is a drop in the bucket of the total provincial capital spent on roads which was $928 million in 2009/10. ICBC's net income of $601 million also goes into general provincial revenue according to the Public Accounts for the Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2010. Now when you thinks of the health costs, environmental costs, congestion costs, and policing costs it's still a drop in the bucket, but if you want to pretend that there are no external costs to driving than ICBC insurance premiums pay for 46% of all provincial highways when you add in the cost of operating highways which was $476 million. Of course provincial highway are a drop in the bucket when you consider that in Metro Vancouver you can count the provincial roads on one hand. All this to say that roads certainly aren't paying for themselves in BC.