The letter says something has been denied. You have read it three times and you still could not say exactly what was refused or what you are supposed to do about it.
A denial letter starts a clock. In Ontario the two year limit to dispute an accident benefit at the Licence Appeal Tribunal runs from the insurer's refusal to pay, not from the date of your accident. Write the day the letter arrived on the letter itself and keep it.
A denial letter is a written decision refusing, reducing or stopping something you claimed. It is not the end of the claim. It is the start of a defined period in which the decision can be challenged.
This page covers Ontario. If you were hurt in another province or territory, what to do when an injury claim is denied in Canada sets out the steps that apply everywhere, including where to find free help in your jurisdiction.
What should you do first when a denial letter arrives?
Three things, and none of them require you to decide anything yet.
Write the date it arrived on the letter. Not the date printed on it. The day it reached your hands or your inbox. Some limits run from the date of the decision and some from when you received it, and you are the only person who knows the second one.
Keep it, whatever it says. Nothing gets thrown away, including letters that look long expired. The reason is further down this page.
Read it for four facts. What exactly was refused. The reason given. The date of the decision. Whether the letter tells you how to dispute it and by when.
Is a denied treatment plan the same as a termination of benefits?
No, and people conflate the two constantly because both arrive as a letter saying no.
A denied treatment plan refuses one specific thing that was proposed. A block of physiotherapy. An assessment. A piece of equipment. Your other benefits carry on. What is at stake is that item, and often the letter points to an assessment that reached a different conclusion from your provider's.
A termination of benefits stops something you were already receiving. Income replacement ending. Attendant care ending. Treatment funding closing altogether. The money stops, usually on a stated date, and the effect on a household is immediate.
They can carry different routes and different urgency, so work out which one you are holding before you do anything else. A letter that ends a weekly payment is not the same problem as a letter that refuses one course of treatment, and treating them as the same is how people put the urgent one at the bottom of the pile.
How long do you have to dispute an accident benefits denial in Ontario?
Two years from the insurer's refusal to pay the amount claimed. Section 56 of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule sets that limit, and the dispute goes to the Automobile Accident Benefits Service at the Licence Appeal Tribunal.
The clock is started by the refusal and by nothing else. There is no rolling deadline that resets each time you ask again, so writing back repeatedly does not buy you more time.
The Tribunal can extend the two years where there are reasonable grounds. It is not a formality. Applications have been refused where the person could not explain a delay of a few months, so treat the extension as a rescue rather than a plan.
The full detail sits on the Ontario accident benefit deadlines page.
How long do you have to object to a WSIB decision?
Thirty days or six months, and assuming the wrong one is the most common way a claim quietly ends.
Thirty days applies to decisions about return to work, work transition, labour market re-entry and re-employment. Six months applies to everything else, including initial entitlement, loss of earnings, health care and permanent impairment. Section 120 of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act sets both.
Read the letter for the words rather than the topic. If it mentions return to work, work transition, modified duties, re-employment or labour market re-entry, treat it as thirty days and act this week. The decision letter itself states the applicable time limit.
One piece of good news sits in the rules. Where you are objecting to two decisions carrying two different limits, the six month limit applies to both. You object using an Intent to Object form. The Ontario WSIB claim deadlines page sets out the rest, including the twenty one day window to object to your medical information being released to your employer.
Can a denial letter be defective?
Yes, and this is the part almost nobody knows.
The courts require an insurer's denial to be clear and unequivocal, and the denial has to meet the requirements set out in the Schedule, including telling you that you have a right to dispute it.
Where a denial falls short of that, the two years may never have begun running at all.
A letter you received four years ago, which you assumed was final and long out of time, may not have started any clock. That is why nothing goes in the bin. A letter that looks expired is still worth showing to someone who can read it properly, and only a lawyer can tell you whether a particular letter did what it needed to do.
What should you do if the deadline looks like it has passed?
Get advice rather than assuming. This is where people give up quietly, and where the answer is least obvious from the letter alone.
For an accident benefits claim, take the letter to a personal injury lawyer. Many offer a free first conversation and work on contingency, so the cost of asking is usually an hour of your time.
For a workplace claim, the Office of the Worker Adviser is an independent agency of the Ontario government giving free advice and representation to non-unionized injured workers. If you are unionized, your union does the same. If a WSIB objection deadline has been missed, you can write to the decision maker asking for an extension and explaining why. The Registrar decides time limit questions and responds within thirty days. It is not automatic and it is not nothing.
Contact either of them early rather than at the deadline. An appeal built in the last week is a weaker appeal.
What should you record when a denial letter arrives?
Do this the day it lands. These details decide, years later, whether your time ever started.
- The date the letter arrived, written on the letter
- The date printed on the decision itself
- Exactly which benefit or treatment was refused, reduced or stopped
- The reason given, in the letter's own words
- Whether the letter told you that you have a right to dispute it
- Whether it told you how to dispute it and by when
- What it relied on, such as an assessment, a report or a surveillance finding
- Every call you make about it, with the date, the name of the person and what they said
Items five and six matter most and are the ones people never think to note. They are what a lawyer looks for first.
The MVA Insurance Correspondence Tracker, Free Starter Edition and the Workplace Claim Correspondence Tracker, Free Starter Edition each give you a logged page per letter, with the arrival date recorded where it belongs. Your provincial Companion Guide carries the deadlines, forms and dispute routes behind them.
Read next
- Injury claim denied in Canada, what to do next
- Insurance surveillance and your injury claim
- How much does WSIB pay while you are off work
Last verified August 2026. This article is general information for people in Canada and is not legal advice. Limitation periods are decided on the facts of an individual claim. If you have received a denial letter, speak to a lawyer or, for a workplace claim, to the Office of the Worker Adviser or your union.