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While ICBC would not provide him with the cost of the discount to its revenues, McCandless estimated it at $85 million in 2014, rising to $100 million today.

That figure will grow. As he wrote in a posting on his blog:

“Demographic (projections) indicate that the 65-and-older proportion of the population will continue to increase. Combined with the declining proportion of young drivers purchasing insurance, ICBC will be required to raise basic rates higher than would be the case in the absence of these social trends.”

So while seniors are being encouraged to drive at cheaper rates than everyone else, more and more youth are turning away from it for a range of reasons — a greater commitment to more ecologically benign life choices, improved public transit and affordability concerns caused by a volatile job market and the high cost of living here. Seniors, of course, would argue that they need a discount because of a fall in income. While that may be true for some, it’s also true that many are asset-rich, own their homes outright and are unburdened by mortgage or car payments. Young drivers could just as well make the argument that, given their financial burdens, they could use a discount, too.

The question of whether or not to continue that seniors discount, McCandless said, is ultimately a political one, just as the decision to quit offering insurance for luxury vehicles was a political decision — and that move was an infinitely more picayune and ineffectual one when it comes to restoring ICBC’s bottom line. But then, our provincial government is unique among jurisdictions in its largesse. As McCandless noted in one of his policy papers on ICBC: