48 - Sunday, August & 1990 - Nortr Snore News

AFFLUENCE & INFLUENCE

Automobile
insurance’s
Mr. Big
checks into
complaints
personally

FOR SOME people, dealing
with the Insurance Corp. of
B.C. (ICBC) is about as
much fun as going to the
dentist.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

A common perception of ICBC
is that the Crown corporation is a
giant company that continually
sucks money out of the pockets of
B.C. drivers and that all in-
surance-related complaints
directed at that giant fall on deaf
ears.

But while ICBC is a giant cor-
poration, it is, in at least one way,
different from most companies.

Complaint letters received by
most companies are usually an-
swered by their public relations
departments.

But at ICBC, all letters are an-
swered by the man at the top:
Tom Holmes, ICBC’s president
and chief executive officer.

“*I answer the mail. I see it all
and I respond to it all,’’ says the
57-year-old North Vancouver res-
ident. ‘‘To me that’s very impor-
tant. People tend not to tell senior
people what’s going on.”’

And Holmes admits that ICBC
gets its fair share of complaints.

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NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

ICBC president and chief executive officer Tom Holmes: ‘‘We're a company people love to hate."

“This year we'll handle some
900,000 complaints,’’ he says.
“It’s like any other business.
There are times that we goof, and
when we do we'll apologize for
our mistakes.**

In addition to complaints,
ICBC also receives the odd letter
of gratitude from customers for a
job well done.

Holmes says the goal of ICBC
is to become the best insurance
company in Canada. hk is current-

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“I think ICBC is one of those says Holmes. ‘People don’t want

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to see anyone touch ICBC.”*

See Holmes Page 19