Big Changes Coming to Accident Benefits

Accident benefits in Ontario are about to undergo a major change.  Many of the benefits available to victims of automobile accidents will no longer be mandatory coverage for insured individuals, now becoming a optional benefit.  If you are uninsured and involved in a motor vehicle accident, your access to many benefits will be removed entirely. 

What Changes are Coming? 

Many of the embedded coverages provided to people injured in automobile accidents will no longer be mandatory inclusions when drivers renew or purchase automobile insurance policies in Ontario. As of July 1, 2026, coverage for income replacement benefits, non-earner benefits, housekeeping, and several other benefits will become optional.  While these changes may have the effect of reducing the baseline cost of automobile insurance in the province, the ramifications of these changes will be significant going forward. 

Mandatory coverage will now consist of just three benefits: 

• Medical expenses
• Rehabilitation expenses
• Attendant care 

These core mandatory benefits relate solely to an injured person’s medical needs following an accident, and none of the associated losses.  The full list of benefits that will now only be available as an optional coverage includes: 

• Income replacement benefits
• Non-earner benefits
• Caregiver benefits
• Lost educational expenses
• Visitor expenses
• Housekeeping and home maintenance services
• Damage to personal effects
• Death benefits
• Funeral expenses

Who Will Be Affected? 

As important as which benefits will no longer be mandatory, is who will have the right to claim them.   

Before the upcoming changes, anyone submitting a claim for accident benefits under a given policy had access to the full benefit of that policy.  That will now be restricted to the named insured, their spouse, dependents, and those persons specified as drivers under the policy.   

The effect of this change will be to restrict other individuals to claiming only the mandatory benefits.  In effect, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists no longer have access to the full gamut of accident benefit coverages, unless otherwise covered under a policy.  This restriction is regardless of which optional benefits have been purchased by the policy holder of the vehicle involved in the collision. 

The result will be a two-tiered system of coverage, where even those uninsured individuals who didn’t make a determination about coverage options, will be denied optional benefits. 

This new accident benefits scheme will undoubtedly absolve some Ontarians of paying for duplicative or irrelevant coverage – for instance where an individual has a robust disability policy or is retired, they are unlikely to “opt in” for IRB coverage.  The trickle-down effect of those savings will have significant implications for many other Ontarians.  Passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists injured in motor vehicle accidents often rely on insurance coverage from a driver involved in the accident.  Critical accident benefits coverage to these more vulnerable victims of car accidents will now be denied for anyone not covered under a policy including optional benefits.   

Determining the Right Coverage for You