ICBC says COVID-19 rebate cheques delayed after cyberattack on third party

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia says it's temporarily delaying the delivery of COVID-19 rebate cheques due to a cyberattack on a third-party vendor contracted to provide printing and distribution services.

ICBC says in a statement the vendor held customer names and addresses, as well as the dollar amounts and numbers of the rebate cheques, but there's no indication that information was obtained in the cyberattack.

It says the attack did not affect ICBC's own systems, which are secure.

The corporation had planned to start issuing the one-time rebate cheques this week and says it put plans on hold as soon as it learned of the attack.

The statement says ICBC is optimistic the delay will be minimal and it is working on options to issue cheques to customers in the coming weeks.

The corporation saved about $600 million due to decreases in crashes during the first wave of the pandemic and the rebate is about 19 per cent of the premium customers paid between April and September last year.

ICBC says that works out to an average of $190 per customer.