(video version...)

This will give you a quick overview of the rehabilitation & attendant care coverage on your Ontario car insurance policy – we'll briefly look at what it’s for, what it covers, and what levels of coverage are available to you so you can decide how much protection you want on your policy.

 

Part of the injury benefits on your car insurance help cover costs for your medical & rehabilitation expenses to help you recover after an accident.  They’d typically cover things like physiotherapy, chiropractic care, prescriptions and assistive devices.  Part of the injury benefits also help cover costs to pay for an attendant – someone to help you while you recover from an injury either at home or in a health care facility.

 

Now a lot of people mistakenly think that either OHIP or the benefits plan they have through their work will pay for their rehabilitation expenses, and while they’ll certainly cover some expenses, there are many costs neither of them will pay for.  Things like making modifications to your home, car or workplace to accommodate a disability you have after a car accident;  to pay for help with your housekeeping like doing laundry & making meals.  Or it could be to pay for the attendant to help with things like getting dressed, moving around, caring for your wounds, helping with your personal hygiene, or preparing or feeding you your meals.  OHIP and most medical plans you’d get through your work won’t cover these things, so you’ll need the rehabilitation and attendant care coverage to pay for them.

 

Starting September 2010, by law, your coverage for rehabilitation and attendant care benefits has to be issued with the lowest possible limits.  Now, if you have minor injuries, like cuts, bruises and whiplash, you have a maximum limit of $3500 to cover medical and rehabilitation expenses, and there is no coverage for attendant care, and you have no option to change these coverages.  Minor injuries account for about half of all car accident injuries in Ontario.

 

If you have serious injuries your coverage after September 2010 has been cut in half.   Serious injuries which typically include things like broken bones, moderate brain injury, partial paralysis, loss of some vision, or in other words some sort of moderate disability.  Something that can disrupt your quality of life for a prolonged period of time - you may recover fully in time, but you could also have some physical or mental deficit that keeps you from returning to work or school, something like memory problems, personality changes, speech impediment, or lack of balance or coordination.  Now, about 40% of all car accident injuries in Ontario result in these types of serious injuries.  The standard coverage only provides up 50,000 for medical & rehabilitation expenses and $36,000 for attendant care costs, and this is where you could have a significant gap to pay for your recovery from serious injuries.  In fact if you only take the standard coverage, you could have a gap of a year where you’ll have to pay for your attendant care costs before you are eligible to be reassessed to qualify for more coverage. 

 

If you end up with Catastrophic injuries, and about 8% of car accident injuries in Ontario are catastrophic.  And by catastrophic I mean parapalegia, quadripeligia, loss of a limb or sever brain injury, your coverage hasn’t changed – you’ll have $1,000,000 for medical & rehabilitation costs and $1,000,000 for attendant care.  However, the medical & rehab coverage is only available for 10 years, and the attendant care for 2 years, which can be a serious shortfall in coverage for a catastrophic injury.  Your only option then would be to sue, and we'll cover that more in a bit.

 

We don’t recommend any take just the standard coverage for these benefits.  You do have some options that are fairly inexpensive for the average driver.

 

The first option you have is to add back the coverage that was taken away in September 2010.  That means for serious injuries, you’d double your medical & rehabilitation limit to $100,000, and double your attendant care coverage to $72,000.  This would also avoid the 1 year gap in attendant care coverage that is a risk with the standard coverage.  Costs for this option typically start around $7 a month per car for the average driver.  As a minimum, what we advise all of our customers, and what we recommend to you is to at least add back these coverages to prevent a dangerous gap in your insurance

 

The other option you have is add an additional $1,000,000 of coverage for serious & catastrophic injuries for both the medical & rehabilitation expenses and attendant care expenses.  The other benefit of taking this option is that the time limit on using these benefits is removed – a very important consideration when you have a life-long catastrophic impairment.   costs for this option start around $13 a month per car for the average driver and can be well worth it.

 

If you have young drivers you’re probably concerned about the cost to insure them.  Their insurance is higher for a reason.  Car accidents are the leading cause of permanent injury in young people – it’s not a time to skimp on your coverage.  This is the time to think about improving your coverage since there is a greater potential that they will need to use your insurance.

 

One last thing we’ll mention as food for thought.  If the injury Benefits you select for your policy aren’t sufficient to cover your expenses after an accident, your only recourse is to sue the other drive.  This of course assumes that you weren’t at-fault for the accident, otherwise it’s going to be pretty hard to convince a judge that the not at fault person should be responsible to compensate you for the accident you caused.  Of course, in Ontario, you can only sue for pain and suffering if your injury meets a certain threshold of severity. And it could take 6 to 8 years to arrive at a settlement, and if you’re successful, your award may be reduced by a large deductible (usually $30,000).  So, you see what we're getting at, right?  It is much cheaper and easier to buy the right coverage in the first place then to have to sue someone to get the compensation you need.

 

So you need to make some important decisions about which injury benefits you need to ensure you're comfortably protected. Give us a call if you'd like more advice or to confirm the cost of options for your specific policy.

 

If you're not already a client of HS Financial, or if you're not dealing with a broker, feel free to give us a call for more advice on the injury benefit options you have.  Given the degree of changes that have been made to Ontario car insurance, having the leverage HS Financial gives you may ensure you're not caught short on coverage when you most need it.  You can also find more information about the changes by going to CarInsuranceChanges.ca.