Ontario Car Accident Claim Deadlines
The dates that govern an Ontario car accident claim. Free. No email required. For drivers, passengers, cyclists and people on foot.
Eight deadlines run an Ontario claim, and they belong to two different systems. Some govern the accident benefits your own insurer pays regardless of fault. Others govern a lawsuit against whoever caused it. Meeting one set does nothing for the other.
THE EIGHT CLOCKS
Five of the eight run out inside your first month. Not drawn to scale.
Inside the first month Longer, but they start now
Missing one does not automatically end your claim. It does create an argument you will have to win later, at the point when you are least able to fight it. Everything below explains each deadline, what actually starts it, and what to write down at the moment it matters.
How long do I have to report a car accident in Ontario?
There is no single report and no single clock. Three separate obligations sit inside the first week, and they are often handled in one afternoon by someone who does not realise they are three.
Police, forthwith. The Highway Traffic Act requires a collision to be reported to police where anyone was injured, where combined damage to vehicles and property appears to be more than $5,000, or where private, municipal or highway property was damaged. If you were hurt, the dollar figure is beside the point — the injury alone makes it reportable.
The collision reporting centre, 24 hours. Where police do not attend and send you to a collision reporting centre instead, you are generally expected there within 24 hours. Take your licence, ownership, insurance slip and the other driver's details.
Your insurer, seven days. The regulator is direct about this one. File a report with your broker, agent or insurance company within seven days, or as quickly as possible after that. Failing to report within a reasonable time may mean your insurer does not honour the claim. This is a phone call, not a form.
Telling an adjuster about a bumper is not telling an insurer you intend to claim benefits.
What is the 7 day rule after a car accident?
There are actually two seven-day rules, and confusing them is the single most common way an Ontario claim goes wrong in week one.
The first is the reporting call above — tell your insurer a collision happened. The second lives in section 32 of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, and it says a person who intends to apply for a benefit must notify the insurer no later than the seventh day after the circumstances arose that give rise to the entitlement, or as soon as practicable after that day.
That is notice of an intention to claim benefits. It is not a report of a crash. And it counts from the circumstances giving rise to the entitlement, which is not always the day of the collision.
Why that distinction is worth your attention. If you walked away shaken but functional, told your insurer about the damage, and only three weeks later found you could not turn your neck or sleep through the night, the two clocks did not start on the same day.
Say the words out loud. Ask for the accident benefits application package in writing, and write down the date you asked.
Have these ready before you call. Your policy number. The make, model, year and plate of the vehicle. The date, time and location. The extent of any injuries. How many passengers were involved. Names and licence numbers of every driver, and the insurance company of each. The name and badge number of the investigating officer if police attended.
Write down before you hang up. The date and time you called. The name of the person who answered. Your claim number. What they told you to do next. What they said they would send you, and when.
How long do I have to return the OCF-1 accident benefits application?
Thirty days. Once you give notice, your insurer sends an application package built around the OCF-1. The completed and signed application must go back within thirty days of you receiving those forms. Your thirty days runs from the day the package reached you, not from the day of the accident.
Note the day it arrived — not the date printed on the letter. The day it landed in your hands or your inbox. That is the date your thirty days is measured from, and you are the only person who knows it.
Three other forms travel with it and you will meet them quickly. The OCF-2 is your employer's confirmation of income. The OCF-3 is the disability certificate your health practitioner completes. The OCF-18 is the treatment and assessment plan your provider submits when they want something funded. Use the versions your insurer sent you — the OCF-1 was reissued for the changes that took effect on 1 July 2026, and a copy downloaded from an older article may be out of date.
What happens if I missed the 7-day or 30-day deadline?
Neither one is automatically fatal, and this is written into the Schedule itself. Section 34 says a person's failure to comply with a time limit set out in that Part does not disentitle the person to a benefit if the person has a reasonable explanation.
Reasonable explanation is not defined anywhere in the Schedule. It is decided case by case, on what you are able to show. Being in hospital, being seriously injured and being unable to function are all understood. Not knowing the rule existed has been argued, and has not gone well.
So if you are already past a deadline, call today rather than tomorrow — and write down now why the delay happened, while you still remember it clearly. Which days you were in hospital. Who was managing your affairs. When you first understood you were injured rather than shaken.
That note is the explanation you will be asked for later, and it is worth more written this week than reconstructed next year.
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 Ontario 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.
Is it too late to file a car accident claim in Ontario?
It depends which claim, and the honest answer is that later than you think is often still open.
For accident benefits, late notice is curable with a reasonable explanation under section 34, as above. People have succeeded with delays measured in months.
For a lawsuit, the basic limitation period is two years, but it does not always run from the collision — where an injury or its cause was not reasonably discoverable at the time, it can run from the day it was.
For a dispute at the tribunal, the two years runs from a refusal that was properly made. If the denial fell short of what the Schedule requires, the clock may never have started at all.
What is genuinely unrecoverable is rare. What is common is a person who assumed it was too late, never asked, and let a live claim expire quietly. If you are outside a window, that is a reason to get an opinion, not a reason to stop.
How long does my insurer have to answer me?
The clocks do not all run against you. When your provider submits a treatment and assessment plan on your behalf, section 38 gives the insurer ten business days to tell you what it will pay, what it will not pay, and the medical reasons for refusing.
Where the insurer misses that window, section 38 sets out what follows. The insurer is prohibited from taking the position that your impairment falls under the Minor Injury Guideline — the category that caps medical and rehabilitation benefits at $3,500. It also has to pay for the goods, services, assessments and examinations in that plan for the period beginning on the eleventh business day after it received the plan and ending on the day it finally gives proper notice.
Which means the date a plan was submitted is worth recording as carefully as any date of your own. Ask your provider for the submission date and keep it. Silence past ten business days is not a neutral event. It has consequences that run in your favour, and nobody will apply them for you if the date is not written down.
My accident benefits were denied. How long do I have to dispute?
Two years, and not from the day of your accident. Section 56 gives you two years from the insurer's refusal to pay the amount claimed. The dispute goes to the Automobile Accident Benefits Service at the Licence Appeal Tribunal, usually shortened to the LAT.
The clock is started by the refusal and by nothing else. There is no rolling deadline that resets each time you ask again.
A refusal only starts the clock if it was properly made. 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 that looks expired is still worth showing to someone who can read it properly.
The Tribunal can also extend the two years. Section 7 of the Licence Appeal Tribunal Act lets it grant an extension where it is satisfied there are reasonable grounds, before or after the limitation has expired. That power is real and it is discretionary. An unexplained delay is the thing most likely to sink it, so if you are late, be ready to say why in specific terms.
Keep every letter that refuses or reduces anything, with the date it arrived written on it. Which benefit it refused. Whether it gave a reason. Whether it told you how to dispute it. Those details decide, years later, whether your two years ever started.
How long after a car accident can you sue in Ontario?
Accident benefits and a lawsuit are separate claims with separate clocks. Returning your OCF-1 protects one of them and does nothing for the other.
120 days to serve notice. Under section 258.3 of the Insurance Act, an action for injury arising from the use or operation of an automobile cannot be commenced unless written notice of your intention to sue was served on the defendant within 120 days after the incident. A court can allow a longer period on a motion, brought before or after the 120 days runs out. The same section makes applying for statutory accident benefits a precondition to bringing the action, which matters if you were thinking of skipping the benefits claim.
Two years to start the action. The basic limitation period under the Limitations Act, 2002 is two years. It usually runs from the collision, but where an injury or its cause was not reasonably discoverable at the time, it can run from the day it was.
Can I sue the city? The 10-day notice nobody mentions
This one is short and it is easy to miss entirely. Where a municipality failed to keep a road, sidewalk or bridge in a reasonable state of repair, section 44(10) of the Municipal Act, 2001 requires written notice of the claim and of the injury — including the date, time and location — served on or sent by registered mail to the municipal clerk within 10 days of the injury. Where more than one municipality is jointly responsible, each clerk needs notice. The City of Toronto Act, 2006 carries near-identical provisions for injuries in Toronto.
Ten days is not a wall, but treat it as one. Section 44(12) says late or insufficient notice is not a bar if a judge finds there was a reasonable excuse and that the municipality is not prejudiced in its defence. Both parts have to be made out. Section 44(11) removes the notice requirement altogether where the injured person died as a result of the injury.
Municipalities routinely argue prejudice on the basis that late notice stopped them inspecting the location while it was still in the state it was in. Ice melts. Potholes get filled. Photographs taken on the day are worth more than an argument made a year later.
I was a pedestrian, cyclist or passenger. Whose insurance pays?
This part is easy to miss. If you do not have your own auto insurance and are not listed on anyone else's policy, you can still claim medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits. What changes is which insurer you apply to. The deadlines above apply to you in exactly the same way.
| Your situation | Where your application goes |
|---|---|
| Driving a company vehicle | The insurer of that company vehicle |
| A passenger in someone else's vehicle | The insurer of that vehicle |
| A passenger in an uninsured vehicle, multi-vehicle crash | The insurer of an insured vehicle involved |
| On foot or on a bicycle | The insurer of the vehicle that hit you |
| None of the above applies | The Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund, the payer of last resort |
That table still tells you which insurer. Since 1 July 2026 it no longer tells you how much you will get, because that now depends on what the responding policy bought.
What changed on 1 July 2026, and did the deadlines change?
The deadlines did not change. The seven-day notice, the thirty-day OCF-1, the 120 days, the two years — all of them survived 1 July 2026 untouched. If you have read that Ontario accident benefits changed and wondered whether your dates moved, they did not.
What changed is what is in the policy. For policies entered into or renewed on or after 1 July 2026, only medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits remain mandatory. The regulator has been clear that the change reaches all customers, so a policy you have held for years is captured at its next renewal.
What became optional. Income replacement. Non-earner. Caregiver. Housekeeping and home maintenance. Lost educational expenses. Expenses of visitors. Damage to clothing, eyewear, hearing aids and other personal items. Death and funeral benefits. Unless one of those was purchased, it is not there after a crash.
One change runs the other way. Your auto insurer is now the first payer for medical and rehabilitation costs other than medication, ahead of a workplace or private health plan. That reverses how it used to work. If an adjuster tells you to exhaust your work benefits first, that instruction is out of date.
If you were on foot or on a bicycle, read this twice. Optional benefits reach a defined group centred on the policyholder and their household rather than everyone the policy responds to. A cyclist struck by a car still has the mandatory medical, rehabilitation and attendant care benefits. Income replacement and the rest may simply not be available, unless someone in that cyclist's own household holds a policy that bought them.
A household where nobody owns a car and nobody holds an auto policy has no route to the optional benefits at all. That is a real change to who the system protects, and it landed quietly.
Two things to ask for in writing. First, which optional benefits sit on the policy responding to your claim. Second, whether the endorsement now numbered OPCF 47R applies to you. It records which optional benefits were bought and which were declined, and it matters most when the priority rules send you to claim on somebody else's policy rather than your own. Keep both answers.
Do I need a lawyer to file an accident benefits claim?
Not to start one. Giving notice is a phone call. The OCF-1 is a form you can complete yourself, and your health practitioner completes the OCF-3 that goes with it. Thousands of Ontario claims run start to finish without a lawyer ever being involved.
Where people commonly get help is a dispute — a denial, a benefit cut off, a catastrophic impairment determination, or a LAT application. Most personal injury lawyers in Ontario offer a free consultation and work on contingency for tort claims, meaning you pay from the settlement rather than up front.
There is also free help that nobody advertises. Your own insurer must have a complaints process. The regulator, FSRA, takes consumer complaints. Community legal clinics assist people who qualify financially. None of those cost you anything.
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.
Last verified: August 2026
Checked against: the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, its notice of the changes effective 1 July 2026, Tribunals Ontario, Licence Appeal Tribunal Automobile Accident Benefits Service, the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, O. Reg. 34/10, sections 32, 34, 38 and 56, the Licence Appeal Tribunal Act, 1999, section 7, the Insurance Act, section 258.3, the Limitations Act, 2002 and the Municipal Act, 2001, section 44.
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.
What should you be writing down while these clocks run?
Every deadline above turns on something you were supposed to write down. The day a letter arrived. The name of the person on the phone. The day a treatment plan was submitted. Whether a refusal ever told you how to challenge it. Whether you said the words that started the benefits clock, or only mentioned your bumper.
EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The Ontario 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.
- All eight deadlines, with what starts each clock
- The OCF forms in the order you will meet them
- Fillable on your phone, at 11pm, in bed
- Updated for the 1 July 2026 benefit changes
$24.99 · instant download · yours to keep
See the Ontario Companion GuideMost people take it with the National MVA Recovery Guide, which is the daily record the dates hang on. The pair saves you $14.
Not ready for that? The scene checklist for the first three days is at hurtsquare.ca/72. Free, and it asks nothing of you.
This page is general information for people in Ontario. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules differ by province and change over time. Confirm anything specific to your situation with a lawyer, your insurer or your provincial regulator.