dachopstix

Plus, if you're deemed to win your case, minus the deductible, you ALSO have to pay taxes on any settlements/awards...

hula_balu

someone metioned going to small claims court?? how does that work?

FiveO

First of all, under Ontario's no-fault insurance jurisdiction, you do not have the right to sue for damages arising out of a crash except in narrowly defined circumstances involving catastrophic injury.

Second, there is a mandatory $30,000 deductible on any damages awards arising from lawsuits related to auto crashes.

In Ontario, Small Claims courts are currently limited to lawsuits involving a maximum of $10,000 in claims. Next January, that limit is being raised to $25,000, but even that falls far below the $30,000 deductible.

hula_balu

i see. thanks

CivicGurl

I was in a similar circumstance nearly a year ago. I was completely stopped at a stoplight and I was hit from behind and pushed into the car in front and the car in front was pushed into the car in front (4 cars total). The cars were all fairly driveable (the car in front of me was questionable) and we went to the Accident Reporting Station. The guy who started the chain was reponsible for all of us. I paid no deductible and my insurance did not go up.

FiveO

Ontario's fault determination rules are provincial law and fall under the Insurance Act of Ontario. You can see the written statutes complete with fault determination pictures at Insurance Act - R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 668 .

Section 9 covers multiple rear-end collisions. They don't deem the people in the middle of a chain-reaction collision sandwich to be at fault if they are already stopped when the chain-reaction collision starts.

On the other hand, if the people in the middle are still moving when they get shoved into the car ahead of them, then they are deemed 50% at fault for not leaving enough following distance prior to the hit.

Mikey2001

Working for an insurance company, that's actually a very good explanation.

Basically the textbook explanation of no fault is that in the event of a peril each insured would go "home" to their own insurance companies and their insurance company will be responsible for any damages or subsequent law suits.

"Fault" still needs to be determined in order to figure out if you need to pay your deductible, as well if you are deemed to not be at fault your insurance company has the right to subrogate (get their money back) from the "at fault" person's insurance company. In this way your insurance company is reimbursed for anything they pay out to you and your premium isn't affected as much.

No fault insurance basically does away with the amount of lawsuits that would be filed in a non at fault jurisdiction, such as in the states, which is why you see all the commercials on television about car injury lawyers.

hope that helps