If you were hurt in a crash in New Brunswick and someone has called your injuries minor, one number now decides a large part of what your claim is worth. For a crash on or after 1 January 2026, the most that can be paid for pain and suffering is $9,926.59.
That cap covers pain and suffering and nothing else. Your lost income, your treatment costs and what you pay out of pocket sit outside it.
And it does not apply at all where the injury caused a serious impairment or permanent serious disfigurement. Whether it did turns on what your days actually look like now, which is why what you write down in the first weeks matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country.
How much is the cap in 2026?
$9,926.59, for a crash on or after 1 January 2026. The Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick raises the amount every 1 January by the New Brunswick consumer price index, and published this year's increase of 2.1 per cent.
The amount that applies to you is the one in effect on the day of the crash, not the day you settle. A claim from 2024 that settles next spring is still measured by the 2024 figure.
| Date of the crash | Most recoverable for pain and suffering |
|---|---|
| On or after 1 January 2026 | $9,926.59 |
| During 2025 | $9,722.42 |
| During 2024 | $9,513.14 |
What the cap does not touch
It limits one kind of damages: the non-pecuniary part, meant for pain, suffering and the enjoyment taken out of your life. Everything below is claimed separately and is not capped.
- Income you have lost, and income you will lose
- Treatment your insurer will not pay for
- Help at home you now need and did not need before
- Mileage, parking, prescriptions and equipment
Your Section B accident benefits are separate again, and their deadlines run in days and weeks rather than years. Our page on New Brunswick Section B claim deadlines sets each one out.
Which injuries fall under the cap?
Six, listed in the Injury Regulation under the Insurance Act, along with anything clinically associated with them: a contusion, an abrasion, a laceration, a sprain, a strain and a whiplash associated disorder.
The regulation defines those last three narrowly. A sprain is an injury to tendons or ligaments. A strain is an injury to muscles. A whiplash associated disorder is a whiplash injury that shows no objective, demonstrable, definable and clinically relevant neurological signs, and no fracture or dislocation of the spine.
That third definition carries more weight than most people realize. A whiplash injury with neurological signs recorded in the file is not what the regulation describes. What your chart says, in the words the clinician chose, is often what decides which side of the line you are on, long before anyone argues about it.
What takes an injury out of the cap?
Two things. A permanent serious disfigurement, or a serious impairment.
Serious impairment is what most claims turn on. The regulation asks whether an impairment of a physical or cognitive function leaves you substantially unable to do the essential tasks of your job, or of the training or education you were enrolled in, or the normal activities of your daily life, despite reasonable efforts to work around it.
The word that matters there is impairment, not injury. A diagnosis that sounds modest can still be a serious impairment when it has taken your work or your evenings away from you. An injury that sounds frightening may not be one if you have recovered from it.
Who decides whether your injury is minor?
Not the adjuster, although a letter can read that way. An insurer's view is a position, not a ruling. Where it cannot be agreed, a court decides, and it is the injured person who has to show the injury was not minor.
That is worth sitting with for a moment, because it shapes everything else. The evidence has to come from your side, and most of it can only be gathered while it is happening.
What should you write down, starting today?
Five things. None of them takes long, and together they are the record the question gets answered from.
- What you cannot do at work. Name the task rather than the feeling: the lift onto the top shelf, the second hour on your feet, the drive between sites. Note who saw you stop, what was offered instead, and whether it worked.
- The ordinary things you have given up. Carrying the groceries in one trip, the Saturday game, sleeping through the night, picking up your child. Write the date you stopped, not an adjective.
- Every appointment, and what went into the note. Ask what was recorded. Range of motion, spasm, neurological findings: these are the words the definition turns on, and they are recorded by someone else.
- Your symptoms, day by day, in your own words. A record with entries from the first week reads differently from one reconstructed a year later, and it is the difference between describing your recovery and remembering it.
- What you have tried. Treatment, a return to work that did not hold, an accommodation that helped for a while. The test asks about reasonable efforts, so the efforts belong in writing.
A few minutes a day for six weeks is a small thing to ask of someone who is sore and tired. It is also the only version of your recovery that will exist when somebody decides how your claim is treated.
How long do you have?
Two clocks run at once. Section B benefits have their own short deadlines, which is why they are worth checking first: our New Brunswick Section B page lists them. A court claim against the other driver falls under New Brunswick's Limitation of Actions Act, which allows two years, counted from the day you knew or ought to have known you had a claim. Separate rules apply to children.
Neither clock waits for you to feel better, and neither one is paused by an insurer still considering your file.
What to read next
Recovering after a car accident in New Brunswick covers the whole route, from the first week to the settlement, and it is free to read. The other two Maritime provinces cap on the same idea at different figures and under different tests: the minor injury cap in Nova Scotia and the minor injury cap in Prince Edward Island. Anywhere else in Canada, start with the guides by province and territory.
Every figure here comes from a named source.
Last verified: September 2026.
Verified against: the annual indexation notice of the minor personal injury amount published by the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick, and the Injury Regulation, N.B. Reg. 2003-20, under the Insurance Act.
Amounts change every January. If you find something out of date on this page, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.
This is general information for people in New Brunswick. It is not legal or medical advice. Whether the cap applies to a particular injury is a legal question that depends on the evidence, and it is worth getting advice before you settle anything.
