The test is not whether the insurer’s mind was actually affected by the insured’s wilfully false statement, but whether the false statement was capable of having such an effect. As Rowles J.A. said in Brown v. Insurance Corp. of British Columbia (2004), 28 B.C.L.R. (4th) 93 at ¶ 25, 2004 BCCA 254: What must be emphasized here is that on the question of materiality, what is significant is not what ICBC did or did not do, but whether the false statement was capable of affecting the insurer’s mind as to the management or payment of the claim. [emphasis in original]
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