B.C. brokers say provincial legislation will cause brokers to police delinquent family support payments

B.C. insurance brokers do not want to be front-and-centre in the provincial government’s recent legislative initiative to deny auto vehicle licenses – and auto insurance – to people who haven’t made child support payments.

Ted Lewis, the first vice president of the Insurance Brokers Association of B.C., told a convention of the Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta that B.C. brokers are starting to mobilize to ask for amendments to Bill 33 so that the province, and not brokers, will be responsible for policing family maintenance payments.

Introduced in late April, Bill 33, the Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, introduces stronger measures to enforce family maintenance payments, including denial of annual vehicle licences.

“Instead of waiting for five years to deny a driver’s licence, as B.C. currently does, we will be able to address non-payment annually, before the debt becomes overwhelming,” said B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal, commenting on the bill at first reading.

B.C’s auto insurance is publicly operated; it would therefore be up to the government’s auto insurance distribution channel, the brokers, to explain to clients who owe more than $3,000 in unpaid support payments why their vehicle insurance isn’t going to be renewed.

“Brokers shouldn’t be involved,” said Lewis, adding that the answer is for the government simply to suspend the driver’s licenses.

The province’s Family Maintenance Enforcement Program (FMEP) collects over Cdn$160 million each year, benefiting 75,000 children, most of them from families of modest means.