Newfoundland and Labrador is the one Atlantic province with no minor injury cap. When the province looked at capping pain and suffering in 2019, it said no and raised a deductible instead.
So nothing limits what your claim can be worth here. Something is taken off the top of it instead: $5,000, from every award for pain and suffering.
And there is a deadline in this province that catches people who have never heard of it. 120 days to tell the insurer you intend to sue.
What the deductible actually does
Section 8 of the Automobile Insurance Regulations, 2019 sets the amount by which damages for non-pecuniary loss are reduced. It is $5,000 where the loss was sustained on or after 1 January 2020, and $2,500 for anything between 1 August 2004 and the end of 2019.
Non-pecuniary loss is the pain and suffering part of a claim, the compensation for what an injury takes out of your life rather than out of your bank account. Your lost income, your treatment costs and your out-of-pocket expenses are not touched by it.
In practice it is simple arithmetic. An award of $20,000 for pain and suffering pays $15,000. An award of $6,000 pays $1,000.
Why a deductible is not a cap
A cap sets a ceiling. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island each limit what certain injuries can be worth, no matter how badly they affected you. This province has no such ceiling, which matters enormously to anyone seriously hurt.
The trade is at the other end. A deductible lands hardest on the smallest claims, because $5,000 is most of a modest award and almost none of a large one. A person with a lasting injury loses a slice. A person with a genuine but moderate one can lose most of the value of the claim.
That is worth knowing early, because it changes what is worth documenting. If your recovery stalls, the evidence of how it stalled is what moves your claim out of the range where the deductible swallows it.
The 120 days almost nobody mentions
Under the 2019 reforms, a person injured in a collision must notify the insurer of their intention to commence an action within 120 days of the accident. That is four months, and it runs while you are still in treatment and still hoping this will all resolve.
Two other rules came in at the same time. Where accident benefits are available to you, you are required to apply for them. And the benefits you receive, or remain entitled to receive, are deducted from any damage award.
Read that last one twice. Claiming your Section B benefits is not optional and does not reduce what you are owed overall, but the same money is not paid twice.
What Section B pays here
Section B is the accident benefits part of an auto policy: the money that comes from your own insurer, regardless of fault, while a fault claim is still years away.
Under the standard policy used in this province, it pays medical and rehabilitation expenses up to $25,000 within four years, weekly income benefits of the lesser of $140 or 80 per cent of your gross weekly earnings, and up to $70 a week for twelve weeks where a principal unpaid housekeeper cannot do their usual work.
Those are contractual policy limits rather than government figures that rise each year, and this is the one province where accident benefits coverage has not been mandatory. So the first question is not how much Section B pays. It is whether the policy carries it at all. Check the declaration page, or ask your broker in writing.
How long do you have to sue?
Two years, under section 5 of the Limitations Act, for an action for damages in respect of injury to the person.
The 120-day notice sits inside that period rather than replacing it, which is the part people get wrong. Missing the notice is not the same as missing the limitation period, but it is not a step to skip and then explain later.
The other dates that run alongside a claim here are on our Newfoundland and Labrador car accident deadlines page.
What should you write down, starting today?
- The date of the collision, and the date you gave notice. The 120 days starts at the first and ends with the second, and only you will have the proof.
- Every Section B payment and refusal. What was claimed, what was paid and when it stopped. Those amounts come off a later award, so the record has to be exact.
- What you cannot do, at work and at home, with dates rather than adjectives. This is what lifts a claim above the range the deductible eats.
- Every appointment and what was recorded. Written by somebody else, at the time, is worth more than anything written afterwards.
- What you have spent. Travel to treatment, prescriptions, equipment, help at home. None of it is touched by the deductible, and all of it has to be proved.
What to read next
The three Maritime provinces work the other way, capping pain and suffering for a defined set of injuries: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. What to do after a car accident in Canada covers the steps that apply wherever you live, and the guides by province and territory cover the rest of the country.
Every figure here comes from a named source.
Last verified: September 2026.
Verified against: section 8 of the Automobile Insurance Regulations, 2019, made under the Automobile Insurance Act, for the $5,000 and $2,500 deductibles; the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador's summary of the 2020 automobile insurance changes, for the 120-day notice and the requirement to apply for accident benefits; and section 5 of the Limitations Act, for the two-year period. The Section B figures above are the limits of the standard automobile policy as published by practitioners in this province, and policy wording governs.
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 Newfoundland and Labrador. It is not legal or medical advice. What your claim is worth, and which dates apply to it, depend on the facts, and both are worth advice well before the 120 days run out.
