Ontario’s Motor Vehicle Fund (MVF) is not automatically a default insurer for an uninsured driver who is caught between auto insurance policies, the Ontario’s Licence Appeal Tribunal confirmed Wednesday.
Mir Wais mistakenly believed he was covered under an auto insurance policy in Ontario when he was injured in an auto collision in August 2021. He made a claim for accident benefits under his policy with Coachman Insurance.
Coachman told the tribunal it had notified Wais before the collision that his policy had expired. Wais’s wife had negotiated with their broker for subsequent coverage from Nordique Insurance, but that policy was not yet in force at the time of the injury.
However, the MVF is an ‘insurer’ of last resort in any priority disputes involving uninsured motorists, Wais argued before the tribunal. Therefore, he was entitled to benefits for his injuries.
The LAT found Wais was raising new arguments in his reconsideration motion that he didn’t make during the initial hearing. What’s more, Wais did not pursue a claim with the insurer of another driver involved in the claim, the tribunal ruled. Thus, the MVF would not have been involved in any priority dispute, since another insurer could be identified.
“….[F]rom the Motor Vehicle Collision Report tendered at the initial hearing, it appears that there was an additional driver involved in the accident,” the tribunal noted in its decision on reconsideration, released on Feb. 5. “This other driver was noted to be insured with Certas Direct Insurance Company. As such, it appears that the applicant may have had recourse against the insurer of the other automobile involved in the accident….
“If the [claimant] is arguing that the Fund is his ‘insurer,’ he bears the onus to prove that he has…exhausted his recourse against all other insurers. The [claimant] has not met his burden on this point.”
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Wais countered he didn’t need to identify any other insurers, since, regardless of who the insurer is (including the MVF), he had recourse against any one of them.
LAT’s adjudicator rejected that notion, noting the MVF does not automatically become the default insurance company for an uninsured driver. “There is a specific chain of recourse that must be followed to access the Fund as a payor of last resort, including identifying other insurers,” the tribunal ruled.
The tribunal’s initial decision suggests a confusion between the insured and his brokerage during the time of policy renewal.
Wais believed he had a valid automobile policy with Coachman at the time of the accident. In fact, the policy had lapsed, the tribunal decision states.
“Email correspondence from [Wais’s] broker, Zeus Insurance Brokers, establishes that in June and July, 2021, [Wais’s] wife reached out to the broker multiple times in an effort to renew their insurance policy when she realized that insurance payments were no longer being withdrawn from their account by [Coachman].”
In a July 7, 2021 email, the broker requested $595.81 for a down payment for insurance with Nordique Insurance, the tribunal decision observes.
Wais’s “wife sent the payment, requested that the broker proceed with the coverage and subsequently sent emails requesting new insurance slips,” the tribunal decision notes. “However, it does not appear that the policy with Nordique Insurance went into effect.
“In an email dated Aug. 20, 2021, the insurance broker stated [Wais’s] accident was not covered by insurance, since [he] did not complete an application for insurance that had been emailed on July 12, 2021, forward evidence of ownership, or a void cheque.”
Feature image courtesy of iStock.com/Kak Iki
