By Andru McCracken
If you need to renew your license, register your car or get a road test, you can still go to the Village of McBride office for service, but the village will no longer be offering ICBC Autoplan Insurance after June 21.
Chief Administrative Officer Sheila McCutcheon said the rationale was simple: dealing with Autoplan was taking too much time.
McCutcheon said that the Village’s workload is ever increasing: everything from energy audits to asset management to emergency preparation to grant writing and rolling out projects.
“I’ve been monitoring [Autoplan] since I arrived,” she said. “It’s costing us a lot of valuable staff time in comparison to the financial return.”
McCutcheon said that council dealt with the issue in April and that councillor Rosemary Hruby who runs Advantage Insurance (which also offers Autoplan) was not a part of the discussions.
“Councillor Hruby recused herself,” said McCutcheon.
McCutcheon said that the Village chose to continue offering motor vehicle licensing and road tests because the system is streamlined.
“There is nothing that changes annually, unlike insurance,” she said.
McCutcheon said the move will protect the Village.
“Our people are not insurance agents; it creates a lot of liability for us if we can’t keep up with all the changes,” she said.
