In Ontario, the standard no-fault Accident Benefit coverage for Catastrophic injuries (i.e. the most serious injuries) is $1M for all Medical, Rehabilitation and Attendant Care services. That amount is not enough to protect you if you are catastrophically injured. For an extra cost, you can buy an extra $1M of coverage (increasing your coverage to $2M).
The standard limit used to be $2M. In 2016, it was reduced to $1M. The Ford government promised in 2019 to increase the limit back to $2M. That hasn’t happened yet.
In 2019, the Ontario Ministry of Finance asked for submissions on automobile insurance and whether to return to a $2M limit for Medical, Rehabilitation and Attendant Care benefits for Catastrophically injured people.
A number of Ontario automobile insurers made written submissions to the government, and a Freedom of Information Request was made to get the insurers’ submissions. The “highlights” of the “Wow” moments can be found in this previous post.
Some of the submissions included statistics about how many people actually buy the optional $2M coverage. Some insurance companies did submissions, while other did not. In the submissions, the companies provided different levels of detail, so some of the stats are open to interpretation, but, overall, the submissions provides a good idea of how many people buy optional benefits.
This chart shows the percentage of customers that buy the optional CAT benefits:
| Company | % of Optional CAT Benefits ($2M or $3M) |
| Cooperators | 17.3% |
| Ontario Mutual Insurance Association | 12% |
| Aviva | 8% |
| Wawanesa | 6.5% |
| RSA/Unifund | Less than 5% |
| Desjardins | 2.5% |
There are two big take away points from this:
- Some insurers and brokers need to do a better job educating their customers on optional benefits.
From the stats, there is quite a variance between different insurance companies and the amount of customers that buy optional benefits. Perhaps some insurers and brokers do a better job of explaining the need for optional benefits. Uptake at less than 10% is not enough, especially given the cost of optional benefits, which we will get to in the next section.
Remember that from the previous post, Desjardins says:
“We do not believe that it is appropriate for a licenced agent to recommend a specific coverage to a client.”
Maybe that is why only 2.5% of their customers are buying the optional CAT benefits.
2. The government should follow through with their promise to increase the standard limit of Catastrophic benefits to $2M.
To increase the limits, the cost per driver would not be much. In their submission, the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario wrote:
“It is expected that any increase to $2M will have a small to marginal increase on a single insurance policy premium – $15 to $30 per year based on today’s pricing and based upon the brokers surveyed (again insurance companies can provide more specifics on pricing, if need be).”
If the government does not follow through on their promise, drivers should still go out and buy the optional benefits. For about $15 to $30 per year, you get twice the coverage should something really awful happen to you.
