Jakupovic v. Intact Insurance Company, 2026 ONCA 651 draws a clear line between telling an insurer that an accident happened and telling the insurer that accident benefits are being claimed.
The insured was involved in a motor vehicle accident in February 2019. He reported the collision and damage to his vehicle to Intact the next day. He did not say that he intended to seek statutory accident benefits. An application for those benefits was not made until December 2020.
Ontario’s Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule requires a person who intends to apply for benefits to notify the insurer of that intention. The dispute was whether the earlier accident report was enough to satisfy that requirement.
The Court of Appeal said it was not. Reporting the occurrence of a collision does not communicate an intention to make an accident benefits claim. The statutory wording separates those ideas. The Court also rejected the view that the consumer protection purpose of the scheme could be used to replace the notice language with a broader obligation on the insurer.
The practical point is narrow but important. An insured can report property damage promptly and still fail to give the separate notice required for accident benefits. The two communications serve different purposes.
The Court of Appeal restored the Licence Appeal Tribunal decision that had denied relief from the late notice. The result doesn’t mean every late notice will fail. It means the statutory requirement must first be identified correctly, and any explanation for delay must be considered against that requirement.
The decision is specific to Ontario’s accident benefits regime, but the reasoning is a useful reminder whenever one policy contains several notice obligations. Notice under one coverage doesn’t automatically satisfy a different notice requirement elsewhere.
Source note: Binder Insurance reviewed multiple detailed Canadian legal analyses that agreed on the material facts, issue, reasoning and disposition. Direct judgment text wasn’t independently retrieved during this run.