The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia spent $23.98 million on salaries and expenses for claims lawyers, paralegals and assistants in the fiscal year ended March 31, a drop of $2.01 million from the first year of the pandemic.
Director of claims programs and strategies Christopher Ryan topped the pay parade at $224,386 in salary. He filed only $46.39 in expense claims. Director of claims and legal services Robert Warner’s salary was $210,538, followed by the manager of claims legal services knowledge management, Robert McCullough. His $194,672 salary was a whopping 24% more than the previous year.
“Where possible, we moved to a virtual working environment and continued operating business as usual,” he said. “That said, our expenses during the pandemic went down as a result of more litigation activities being conducted virtually rather than in-person.”The department’s 2021 organization chart covers 24 pages, while 2022’s totals 21 pages.
“They're not talking about no-fault resulting in a significant drop in their claims staffing and I interpret that to mean that they're trying to keep the people there to to reduce the backlog of claims, because we've got quite a buildup of claims pending,” McCandless said.