Nova Scotia Section B Claim Deadlines
The dates that govern a Nova Scotia car accident claim. Free. No email required. For drivers, passengers, cyclists and people on foot.
Nova Scotia runs several clocks at once and the first one starts within twenty four hours. Some of them are obligations you owe. Some of them run against your insurer, and those are the ones worth knowing when a claim stalls. Every figure below has been checked against the Insurance Act, its regulations and the governing statutes rather than against summaries of them.
THE TEN CLOCKS
Four of the ten run out inside your first month, and the first of them inside a day. Not drawn to scale.
Inside the first month Longer, and each counts from its own day
Two of them are commonly misread. The one year to sue your own insurer over Section B runs from the day the cause of action arose, which is usually the day a benefit stopped rather than the day of the accident. And two more deadlines are not on the runway at all, because they count backwards from the day you file rather than forwards from the crash: one month of notice before suing a municipality, two months before suing the province. Everything below explains each deadline, what actually starts it, and what to write down at the moment it matters.
How soon do you have to report a car accident in Nova Scotia?
Twenty four hours to the police. The Motor Vehicle Act requires a report where the accident caused injury or death to any person, or where the estimated total property damage is two thousand dollars or more. Injury triggers the duty on its own, whatever the damage came to. The threshold was raised from one thousand dollars to two thousand dollars in 2013, so treat the figure as something to re-check rather than something fixed.
Your own insurer gets written notice promptly. The mandatory conditions in every Nova Scotia automobile policy require the insured to promptly give the insurer written notice of any accident involving loss or damage to persons or property, with all available particulars, and of any claim made on account of it. There is no fixed number of days attached to that word. Promptly means promptly, and the safe reading is the same week.
A vague deadline is not a generous one. Treat it as this week.
Write these down before you put the phone down. The date and time you gave notice. Who you spoke to. The claim number, if one was given. What they told you happens next, and what they asked you to send.
Nothing on this page is harder to prove later than the day you told somebody. It costs a line in a notebook now.
What are the Section B deadlines in Nova Scotia?
Thirty days for the notice of claim, ninety days for the proof of claim. The notice is written, and it goes to the chief agency or head office of the insurer in the province, delivered personally or sent by registered mail. Both deadlines carry the same softener in the regulation: within the period, or as soon as practicable after that.
That phrase matters. It is not permission to take your time, because a delay you cannot explain is what sinks a late claim. It does mean a person in hospital, or a person whose symptoms surfaced weeks later, is not automatically shut out on day thirty one.
Section B pays whoever caused the collision. That is the part people find surprising. Your own insurer pays these benefits regardless of who was at fault, and a claim against the at fault driver runs alongside it rather than instead of it.
Medical and rehabilitation expenses have four years. They have to be incurred within four years of the accident, to a limit of fifty thousand dollars. That is the deadline furthest out on this page and the easiest to lose track of, because nothing arrives in the post to tell you the window is closing.
What does Section B pay in Nova Scotia?
Five heads of benefit, and only some of them have a figure attached. The amounts below are the ones the regulation sets. Each one has its own deadline sitting behind it, which is why the money and the dates are difficult to think about separately.
| What Section B pays | Amount | The clock attached to it |
|---|---|---|
| Medical and rehabilitation | Up to $50,000 | The expense has to be incurred within 4 years of the accident |
| Income replacement | The lesser of $250 a week or 80% of gross weekly income, less income replacement available elsewhere | Inability to work has to begin within 30 days and last at least 7. Up to 104 weeks |
| Housekeeping | $100 a week for a principal unpaid housekeeper who is completely incapacitated | Up to 52 weeks |
| Funeral expenses | Up to $2,500 | One of the five Section B heads, so the notice and proof of claim deadlines apply to it |
| Death benefits | Payable, but this page does not carry the figure | Ask your insurer rather than working from a number you found online |
The four year window on medical and rehabilitation expenses is worth reading twice. Fifty thousand dollars is a ceiling rather than a budget, and four years is long enough that people stop keeping receipts halfway through.
Can you start physiotherapy without insurer approval in Nova Scotia?
Yes, for sprains, strains and whiplash one and two injuries. The Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols let treatment start without waiting for the insurer to approve it. Two conditions apply and both are easy to miss: the protocols operate only where you want to be diagnosed and treated under them, and where your practitioner chooses to treat you under them. It is elective on both sides rather than automatic.
Ten business days for the form, ninety days for the treatment. The completed claim form goes to the insurer no later than ten business days after the accident, or as soon as practicable if that is not reasonable. The protocols then stop applying once ninety days have passed from the date of the accident. If your practitioner referred you to an injury management consultant inside those ninety days, that assessment and report can be finished afterwards.
| Injury | Combined treatment visits |
|---|---|
| First or second degree strain or sprain, or a whiplash one injury | 10 |
| Third degree strain or sprain, or a whiplash two injury | 21 |
The count is combined, not one count each. Those totals cover visits to a physiotherapist, a chiropractor or an adjunct therapist together. The assessment visit is in addition to them, and a referral to an injury management consultant does not count against them either.
Count them as you go. People arrive at week ten having used six of twenty one and find the window nearly shut. Ask at your first appointment which count you are on, not your third. Nothing in the protocols stops you or your practitioner applying to the insurer for treatment beyond those limits.
Two limits run at once here. Ninety days, and your visit count. Whichever empties first is the one that ends treatment under the protocols.
If your claim were decided tomorrow, what would your file say?
People who were genuinely hurt have lost benefits over a date nobody recorded, a form that arrived late, or a call nobody wrote down. Caught early that is fixable. A year on it is an argument you have to win. The Nova Scotia MVA Companion Guide keeps every date on this page in one place, with the form that goes with each and room to write down what actually happened. $24.99, yours to keep.
What do you need for income replacement in Nova Scotia?
The inability to work has to begin inside thirty days and last at least seven. The test in the regulation is that within thirty days of the accident, and as a result of it, you suffer substantial inability to perform the essential duties of your occupation or employment for a period of not less than seven days. You also have to have been employed at the date of the accident, or to be treated as employed because you were between eighteen and sixty five and worked six of the previous twelve months.
A doctor's letter is not the trigger. The insurer can require a physician's certificate as to the cause and nature of the accident and the duration of the disability, and it usually will. What starts the entitlement is the inability itself arising inside the thirty days, not the date a certificate was signed. Getting seen early still matters, because the record of when you stopped being able to work is the evidence.
The benefit is the lesser of two hundred and fifty dollars a week or eighty per cent of your gross weekly income, less income replacement available to you elsewhere. Payments run to a maximum of one hundred and four weeks, and beyond that only where the injury continuously prevents you from any work you are reasonably suited to by education, training or experience. A principal unpaid housekeeper who is completely incapacitated receives one hundred dollars a week for up to fifty two weeks.
The thirty days is a gate, not a countdown. It is not the deadline to claim the benefit. It is the window in which the inability has to start. Somebody who worked through the first six weeks in pain, then stopped, is in a different position from somebody who stopped in week two and went back.
So write down the first day the accident stopped you doing the essential parts of your job, even if you kept going at the rest. That date decides the benefit, and only you were there for it.
What if the other driver was uninsured or cannot be identified?
A separate coverage applies, and it runs its own clocks. Written notice of the claim goes to the insurer within thirty days of the accident, or as soon after as practicable, and a detailed proof of claim within ninety days.
The numbers are the same as Section B, which is exactly why they get missed. This is a second set of deadlines, not the same one counted twice. A hit and run, or a driver with no insurance, means both sets are running at once and both are yours to keep.
How long do you have to sue after a car accident in Nova Scotia?
Two years from discovery to sue the at fault driver. Discovery is the day you first knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that the injury happened, that it was caused by an act or omission, and that the act or omission was the defendant's. For most collisions that is the day of the crash. Where symptoms surfaced later, it can be later. A fifteen year outer limit runs from the act or omission whatever you knew.
Suing your own insurer over Section B is a different clock, and it is one year. The regulation is explicit: every action or proceeding against the insurer for the recovery of a Section B claim has to be commenced within one year from the date on which the cause of action arose. The cause of action generally arises when the insurer stops paying or refuses, not on the date of the accident.
Two years and one year sit side by side in the same file, attached to two different opponents. Someone reading a general two year rule and applying it to a benefits denial can be six months out of time before anyone says so. If a benefit stops, write down the date it stopped.
Two clocks, two opponents. The shorter one belongs to the insurer that has been paying you.
Are the deadlines different if a municipality or the province was involved?
Considerably, and one of them halves the limitation period. The Municipal Government Act sets the limitation period for an action against a municipality or village, its council, a council member, a village commissioner, an officer or employee, or anyone acting under their authority, at twelve months rather than two years. An unrepaired road, a missing sign, an unploughed street or a municipal vehicle can all land here.
Notice comes before the action, not after the accident. This is the part that catches people who have counted correctly and still cannot file. Both notices below are served before the action starts, so each one has to be served early enough to leave room for itself inside the limitation period.
| Who you are suing | Notice before you can file | What the notice has to say |
|---|---|---|
| A municipality or village, its council, a council member, a village commissioner, an officer or employee, or anyone acting under their authority | At least 1 month, served on the intended defendant | The cause of action, the name and address of the person intending to sue, and the name and address of their solicitor or agent |
| The Crown, in an action against the province | 2 months of previous written notice, served on the Attorney General | The name and residence of the proposed plaintiff, the cause of action, and the court in which the action is to be brought |
Against the province it is two months to the Attorney General. Two months is a period, not a count of sixty days, so work back from a calendar rather than from arithmetic. The same goes for the one month owed to a municipality, sitting inside a limitation period that is already only twelve months long.
Which car accident deadlines run against the insurer in Nova Scotia?
More than you would expect, and they are enforceable. Every Section B amount other than loss of income is payable within thirty days after the insurer receives proof of claim. Initial loss of income benefits are payable within thirty days after proof of claim, and then within each thirty day period while the insurer remains liable, provided you furnish proof of continuing disability when asked.
Under the treatment protocols the insurer has five business days. Within five business days of receiving a completed claim form the insurer has to send a decision notice approving or refusing the claim, with reasons if it refuses. It can refuse for four listed reasons only. If it sends nothing, the claim is deemed approved.
Protocol claims are payable within thirty days of receipt. The insurer also has no right to overrule your practitioner's diagnosis under the protocols and cannot introduce an independent medical examination during treatment under them. Note the date on every letter you receive, because these are the clocks that put pressure back where it belongs.
Silence is an answer here, and it is a good one. A protocol claim the insurer does not respond to inside five business days is deemed approved. So date the day you sent the form, and count.
The same habit protects the other direction. If a benefit is thirty days late after proof of claim, that is a date you can put in a letter rather than a feeling that things are dragging.
What happens if you miss one of these deadlines?
Missing one is serious. It is not always the end. Two things soften the picture. The Section B notice and proof of claim deadlines are written as thirty days or ninety days or as soon as practicable thereafter, so lateness with an explanation is inside the wording of the regulation rather than outside it.
The Insurance Act also lets a court relieve against forfeiture. Where there has been imperfect compliance with a statutory condition as to proof of loss, or another thing required to be done by the insured, and the insurance would be forfeited as a result, a court that considers forfeiture inequitable may relieve against it and set the terms on which it does so.
Neither of these is something to plan around. Both are worth knowing if a date has already gone by, because the answer to a missed deadline is a lawyer and a written explanation, not silence.
Check which one you have actually missed. Both softeners above are attached to the Section B notice and proof of claim. Neither is attached to the limitation periods, which are the deadlines to start an action: one year against your own insurer, twelve months against a municipality, two years against the at fault driver, fifteen years as an outer limit on anything.
If you are already past a date, write down today why the delay happened, while you still remember it clearly. Which weeks you were in hospital or could not manage your own affairs. Who was helping you. When you first understood you were injured rather than shaken.
That note is the explanation that has to go with a late claim, and it is worth more written this week than reconstructed next year.
Did the Nova Scotia car accident deadlines change in 2026?
The deadlines did not change in 2026. This page did. It was corrected on 8 August 2026, and the corrections matter enough to repeat here rather than leave in a footnote.
There is no seven day deadline to report to your own insurer. An earlier version of this page said there was. The mandatory conditions require prompt written notice with no fixed number of days attached to it.
There is no one hundred and twenty day notice before suing the at fault driver. That is a Newfoundland and Labrador rule, and it does not apply in Nova Scotia. If you have read it on a page about Atlantic Canada generally, check which province the page was written for.
An action over denied Section B benefits is one year, not two. That was the third correction, and it is the one most likely to cost somebody a claim, because two years is the number people carry in their heads from the tort side.
The last dated change to a deadline itself was in 2013, when the reporting threshold for a police report rose from one thousand dollars to two thousand dollars. Figures like that move, which is why the verification block below says what was checked and when.
Do I need a lawyer to make a Section B claim in Nova Scotia?
Not to start one. The report to the police is a report. The notice to your insurer is written notice with all available particulars. The Section B notice of claim is a written notice delivered personally or sent by registered mail to the chief agency or head office of the insurer in the province, and the proof of claim follows it. None of those requires a lawyer to send.
Treatment does not wait for approval either. Under the Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols you can begin without the insurer agreeing first, provided you and your practitioner both choose to work under them and the form goes in within ten business days.
Where advice earns its money is a date that has already gone by. Relief against forfeiture is granted by a court, not by an insurer, and a late claim is answered with a written explanation rather than with silence. The one year clock against your own insurer is the other place to ask early, because it is short and it starts on a day nobody announces.
What no lawyer can do afterwards is reconstruct the record you did not keep. Whatever you decide about representation, the dates and the notes are yours to make.
Dates are only half of it. Knowing when something is due does not tell you how Section B and a claim against the at fault driver run side by side, what the treatment protocols actually cover or what to do when a benefit is refused.
Recovering after a car accident in Nova Scotia covers the whole process and is free to read. Hurt in another province? Start from the guides by province and territory.
Last verified: August 2026
Checked against: the Automobile Insurance Contract Mandatory Conditions Regulations, Schedule 1 and Schedule 2, made under the Insurance Act; the Automobile Accident Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols Regulations; the Uninsured/Unidentified Automobile Coverage regulations; the Insurance Act itself; the Limitation of Actions Act; the Proceedings against the Crown Act; the Municipal Government Act; and the Motor Vehicle Act reporting threshold as published by the Province.
Corrected on 8 August 2026. An earlier version of this page stated a seven day deadline to report the accident to your own insurer and a one hundred and twenty day notice before suing the at fault driver. Neither requirement appears in Nova Scotia law. The mandatory conditions require prompt written notice with no fixed number of days, and the one hundred and twenty day notice is a Newfoundland and Labrador rule. The same version gave two years for an action over denied Section B benefits. It is one year.
Deadlines change. If you find something on this page that is out of date, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.
Keeping the record these deadlines depend on
Read the runway again and notice how many of those clocks start on a date that exists only in your own notes. The day a benefit stopped. The day you first could not do your job. The day the insurer's letter arrived. The day you sent the protocol form and started counting five business days. Nobody is writing those down for you.
Recovery First. Pressure Last.
EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The Nova Scotia MVA Companion Guide
This page tells you the dates. The guide walks you through them, and gives you somewhere to write down what happened on each one.
- Every deadline on this page, with what starts each clock
- A visit counter for the ten and twenty one visit protocol limits
- The one year and the two year clocks side by side, so the two do not get mixed up
- Fillable on your phone, at 11pm, in bed
$24.99 · instant download · yours to keep
See the Nova Scotia Companion GuideMost people take it with the National MVA Recovery Guide, the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs these dates hang on. People who have only one tend to end up with a careful record aimed at the wrong process, or the right dates and nothing to put in front of them.
Not ready for that? The scene checklist for the first three days is at hurtsquare.ca/72. It is free and asks nothing of you.
This page is general information for people in Nova Scotia. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules differ by province and change over time. Confirm anything specific to your situation with a lawyer or your insurer.