Ontario Accident Benefits Changed on 1 July 2026

On 1 July 2026 the rules that govern what your own auto insurer pays after a car accident changed, and the change has had far less attention than it deserves. Most of the benefits people assume come built into an auto policy are no longer automatic. They are optional benefits now, and for the most part the amounts are no longer written into the regulation at all.

If you have been injured since that date, what you are entitled to can no longer be answered by looking up the law. It depends on what your policy says.

For how the system works as a whole, including the benefits that were not affected, see our Ontario accident benefits page.

What changed

The Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule was amended by O. Reg. 383/24. The amendments took effect on 1 July 2026 and apply to every policy entered into or renewed on or after that date, under section 2(1.0.1).

The Schedule is organised into Parts. Four of them became optional:

• Part II, the income replacement, non‑earner and caregiver benefits
• Part IV, payment of other expenses, which covers housekeeping and home maintenance, lost educational expenses, visitor expenses, and repairing or replacing clothing, glasses and hearing aids
• Part V, death and funeral benefits
• Part VI, the additional optional benefits

What is still mandatory

Part III was left alone. Medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits are still compulsory on every policy. If your treatment is what is in dispute, that coverage is intact.

The limits are unchanged:

• $3,500 plus applicable HST where the impairment is predominantly a minor injury, under section 18(1). Our Minor Injury Guideline page explains that category and how people get out of it.
• $65,000 plus HST for medical, rehabilitation and attendant care combined, for everyone not held to the minor injury limit, under section 18(3)(a)
• $1,000,000 plus HST where the impairment is catastrophic, under section 18(3)(b)
• Attendant care itself is capped at $3,000 per month, or $6,000 per month for a catastrophic impairment, under section 19(2)

The amounts are no longer in the regulation

This is the part that catches people out, and it is worth understanding properly.

Before 1 July 2026 you could look up what a benefit paid. The income replacement benefit was 70 per cent of gross weekly income to a maximum of $400 a week, and the $400 was in the regulation. It is not there any more. Section 7(1) now says the weekly amount is the lesser of the calculated base amount and the amount fixed by the optional benefit.

That same phrase, the amount fixed by the optional benefit, now appears fifteen times in the Schedule. It replaced the stated figure for:

• The income replacement benefit, section 7(1)
• The non‑earner benefit, section 12(2)
• The caregiver benefit, both for the first person in need of care and for each additional person, section 13(2)
• Lost educational expenses, section 21(1)
• Visitor expenses, section 22(1)
• Housekeeping and home maintenance, section 23(1)
• Repairing or replacing clothing, glasses and hearing aids, section 24
• Every payment under the death benefit, section 26(2)
• The funeral benefit, section 27(2)
• The optional dependant care benefit, section 29(2)

So there is no longer a statutory answer to the question of how much the income replacement benefit pays. There is only what your own policy fixed it at. Where an optional benefit is purchased, the insurer has to issue an endorsement in a form approved by the Chief Executive Officer, under section 4.1(4). That endorsement is now the document that decides what you get.

You may not have lost anything, and you may not know either way

The transition rule is more forgiving than the headlines suggest, and it is the single most useful thing to understand here.

If your policy renewed on or after 1 July 2026, the benefits you already had are deemed to continue as optional benefits, in the amounts previously payable, unless you and your insurer agreed in writing that you were declining a benefit or changing the amount. That is section 2(1.0.2).

So nobody was stripped of coverage quietly. But coverage can be given up by signing something at renewal, and renewal paperwork is not what most people read closely. Section 2(1.0.3) also allows a named insured and an insurer to agree in writing, at any point on or after 1 July 2026, to change a policy that was entered into before that date.

Send us your policy and your endorsement and we will tell you what you actually have. Nobody can give you that figure off the top of their head any more, and it is far better to know before you need it than after.

Who these benefits now reach

Section 2(1.0.4) is short and it matters. Despite any provision of the policy, on and after 1 July 2026 the optional benefits in Parts II, IV, V and VI are only applicable to four categories of person:

• The named insured
• The spouse of the named insured
• The dependants of the named insured and of the named insured’s spouse
• The persons specified in the policy as drivers of the insured automobile

For a pedestrian struck by a car, a cyclist, or a passenger with no auto policy of their own, that is a meaningful narrowing of what used to be available. Whether and how it applies to a policy taken out before 1 July 2026 that has not yet renewed is a question we would want to look at on the particular facts and the particular policy.

Medical, rehabilitation and attendant care under Part III are not affected by this provision.

If you have been injured since 1 July 2026

• Apply anyway. Your medical, rehabilitation and attendant care coverage is mandatory and is not affected by any of this.
• Get the policy and the endorsement, not the summary. The declaration page alone will not always tell you what was fixed for each optional benefit.
• Keep the renewal paperwork. If a benefit was declined or reduced, section 2(1.0.2) requires a written agreement. Whether one exists, and what it says, is the whole question.
• Do not treat a refusal as the end of it. A benefit said to be unavailable because it was not purchased is a different argument from one denied on the medical evidence, and it is checked a different way.

Exceptions may apply ‑ legal advice is strongly recommended for your particular situation.

Speak to a lawyer about the 2026 changes

Initial consultations are free. Our fee schedule is published in full, by stage of the case, on our Fair Fees page. Call 905-409-2438, send a text, message us on WhatsApp, or use the contact form.

Steven Polak is licensed as a lawyer in Ontario and practises with Lerners LLP at 123 Athol Street, Whitby.

This page describes O. Reg. 34/10 as amended by O. Reg. 383/24, in force 1 July 2026. Last reviewed 3 November 2026.