Category Archives: Insurance News

Catch-all category for developments in the law of insurance.

Insurer Must Defend Owner of Snowmobile

The Ontario Superior Court has ruled that TD General Insurance Company owes a duty to defend a liability claim arising out of a snowmobile accident, despite the company’s contention that it did not insure the owner of the snowmobile.

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Threshold Ruling Does Not Imply Causal Connection

The Court of Appeal has just released an important decision that will be of interest to those handling MVA claims. In Igbokwe v. Price, the court ruled that the trial judge’s finding, that the plaintiff’s injuries met the Insurance Act … Continue reading

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Threshold Motion Succeeds

The Divisional Court’s decision in Frankfurter v. Gibbons, which was the subject of an earlier Update, has already been applied in an Ontario Superior Court trial decision. In Bridgewater v. James, Mr. Justice Herman J. Wilton-Siegel cited the Frankfurter decision … Continue reading

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No Duty to Remind Insured of Excluded Driver Endorsement

In Hunter v. Economical Insurance Group, Mr. Justice Robert MacKinnon of the Ontario Superior Court has ruled that an excluded driver endorsement was not ambiguous and that even though the accident occurred three years after the endorsement was issued, the … Continue reading

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Divisional Court Reverses Trial Finding that Injury Was “Serious”

In a decision that was good news for insurers, the Ontario Divisional Court has reversed the finding of Superior Court Justice Wilton-Siegel, that injuries suffered in a 1999 MVA met the threshold under s. 267.5(5) of the Insurance Act . … Continue reading

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Assessing MVA Damages in 2005

There will soon be some significant changes to the way that BI damages are assessed in MVA cases. In this edition of our Update, we will try to assist you in applying these new principles.

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When is a Car not a Car?

The case of Meadowview Heights Ltd. v. Revivo raises some issues reminiscent of our undergraduate philosophy course in “Personal Identity”. But on a more prosaic level, the case is a useful interpreation of the exclusion, found in both homeowner’s and … Continue reading

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Detailed Analysis of “Catastrophic Impairment”

In Desbiens v. Mordini, Mr. Justice Harvey Spiegel has written a very lengthy, comprehensive set of reasons in a personal injury case in which one of the key issues was the interpretation of “catastrophic impairment” in Regulation 461/96 of the … Continue reading

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Corrigendum on Branco Case

We have learned that yesterday’s Update on Branco v. Allianz erroneously referred to Allianz as the defendant. In fact, we now understand that Allianz was the AB carrier and although it had been a defendant originally, it was out of … Continue reading

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Plaintiffs Get Damages of $750, Costs of $21,000

This case, released today, is a bit of a head-scratcher.In Branco v. Allianz Insurance, the plaintiffs were claiming damages as a result of personal injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident. The trial lasted eight days before Justice Siegel and … Continue reading

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