Alberta Section B Accident Benefit Deadlines

The dates that govern a car accident claim in Alberta. Free. No email required. For drivers, passengers, cyclists and people on foot.

Alberta runs two systems side by side. Section B is the no-fault accident benefits built into every standard automobile policy, and you claim them whoever caused the crash, including when it was you. Separately, you keep the right to sue the driver who caused it. The two have different clocks, and one does not extend the other.

The AB-1 form and the accident benefits regulation both point at thirty days. If your injury is a sprain, a strain or whiplash, a different regulation sets a shorter clock of ten business days, and that is the one that decides whether your treatment is billed directly. Everything below sets out which applies to you.

Missing one does not automatically end your claim. Most of them carry the same wording, that where meeting the period is not reasonable you give notice as soon as practicable after that. One of them carries no give at all. Everything below explains each deadline, what actually starts it, and what to write down at the moment it matters.

How long do you have to notify your insurer in Alberta?

Thirty days from the accident. The Automobile Accident Insurance Benefits Regulation requires a properly completed prescribed claim form to reach the insurer's head office or chief agency in Alberta within thirty days of the accident. If giving notice inside thirty days is not reasonable, it must be given as soon as practicable after that, and you should explain the reason for the delay when you send it.

That form is the AB-1. Someone can send it on your behalf, which matters if you are in hospital.

I was a passenger, a cyclist or on foot. Whose insurance pays? You claim Section B from the insurer of the vehicle you were in. If you were on foot or on a bicycle, you claim from the insurer of the vehicle that struck you. The thirty days, and the ten business days in the next section, reach you in the same way they reach a driver.

Your situation	Where your Section B claim goes
Driving, or a passenger in a vehicle	The insurer of the vehicle you were in
On foot or on a bicycle	The insurer of the vehicle that struck you
The driver was uninsured, or was never identified	The Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Program, which is the last resort and has its own ninety day notice

Write down before you hang up. The date and time you called. The name of the person who answered. Your claim number. Which forms they are sending and when.

What is the ten business day rule for sprains, strains and whiplash?

It is a shorter clock sitting in a separate regulation. If your injury is diagnosed as a sprain, a strain or a whiplash associated disorder I or II, the Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols Regulation applies to it. That regulation asks for the completed claim form within ten business days of the accident, or if that is not reasonable, as soon as practicable after that.

What the ten business days buys you is direct billing and no waiting. Inside the protocols your physiotherapist or chiropractor can assess and treat you and bill your insurer without seeking approval first.

Injury	Combined visits authorized
First or second degree sprain or strain, or WAD I	Up to 10 combined physical therapy, chiropractic and adjunct therapy visits
Third degree sprain or strain, or WAD II	Up to 21
Adjunct therapy	Its own aggregate limit of one thousand dollars, and those visits do not count against the combined total

Miss the ten business days and you are not out of your claim. You fall back on the thirty day rule and on your own extended health coverage first, which is slower and comes out of your pocket while you wait. Waiting for an approval you do not need can cost you the early weeks.

Is the AB-1 due in 30 days or 90 days?

Thirty days, and ten business days for a protocol injury. Ninety days is not a filing deadline at all.

We went to the regulations. The Notice and Proof of Claim provision of the Automobile Accident Insurance Benefits Regulation sets thirty days. The Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols Regulation sets ten business days for the injuries it covers. Ninety days appears in neither as a date by which your claim form is due.

Ninety days is a real rule attached to a different thing. An authorization under the protocols expires ninety days after the accident unless your insurer approves its use beyond that point, and from then on continued treatment needs approval. Reading it as a filing deadline could cost you the direct billing you were entitled to.

What happens if you missed the 10 business day or 30 day deadline?

It depends which one, and the honest answer is that most of these bend further than people assume.

The thirty days. Where giving notice inside thirty days is not reasonable, the regulation requires it to be given as soon as practicable after that. Send the form, and explain the reason for the delay when you send it.

The ten business days. Same wording, same escape. Missing it does not end your claim. What it costs you is the direct billing, because you fall back on the thirty day rule and on your own extended health coverage first, which is slower and comes out of your pocket while you wait.

The ninety day notice to the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Program is survivable. The Act allows a longer period where the court permits it, and the Administrator may waive the notice requirement. Neither is something to rely on, so send the notice anyway.

The two years to sue is the one with no give in it. Once the period has begun the court has no discretion to extend it, outside fraud and the exception for a claimant who has not reached the age of majority. Every other deadline on this page has some give. This one does not.

Which Alberta accident benefit form is which?

These are the prescribed forms as the Alberta Superintendent of Insurance lists them.

Form	What it is	Who completes it
AB-1	Notice of Loss and Proof of Claim	You
AB-1A	Claim for Disability Benefits	A physician
AB-2	Treatment Plan	Your primary health care practitioner
AB-3	Progress Report	Your practitioner at the insurer's request
AB-4	Concluding Report	The practitioner who did most of your treatment
AB-5	Referral to an Injury Management Consultant	The practitioner requesting the consult

Note what this means in practice. Only the AB-1 is yours to complete. Every other form depends on a health professional filling it in properly and on time, which is why what you tell them at each appointment ends up shaping your claim.

How long do Section B benefits last?

Two years from the accident. Section B covers reasonable expenses for necessary treatment incurred inside that window, to a limit of fifty thousand dollars per person. Expenses fall outside once the two years is up, whatever the state of your recovery.

Track spend against the limit from day one. Fifty thousand sounds generous until physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage and psychological treatment run in parallel for eighteen months. You will not necessarily be told when you are close to it.

Section B is excess coverage. Where you have other insurance covering the same thing, through work or a spouse's plan, that pays first and Section B covers what is left. Keep both sets of receipts.

What happens if you cannot return to work?

A weekly disability benefit, and the sixty days is a gate rather than a start date. To qualify you must have been employed at the date of the accident, and within sixty days of the accident the injury must prevent you from performing any and every duty pertaining to your occupation or employment.

It pays the lesser of six hundred dollars a week or eighty percent of your average gross weekly earnings, less any payments for loss of income from occupation or employment that you receive or that are available to you. No benefit is payable for the first seven days of disability, or for any period beyond one hundred and four weeks.

Those seven days are an exclusion written into the regulation rather than a waiting period, so they do not arrive later.

The AB-1A that supports the benefit is completed by a physician, so book that appointment well before the sixty days is up rather than after.

How long do you have to sue the driver who hit you?

Two years, and this is the deadline that does not bend. Under the Limitations Act the period runs two years from the date you first knew, or in the circumstances ought to have known, three things together: that the injury had occurred, that it was attributable to the conduct of the defendant and that the injury, assuming liability, warrants bringing a proceeding.

There is an outside limit as well, of ten years after the claim arose. Whichever period expires first is the one that governs.

Treat it as running from the accident. The later start date exists and the three parts of the test are read together, but once the period has begun the court has no discretion to extend it, outside fraud and the exception for a claimant who has not reached the age of majority.

Two exceptions are worth knowing. Where the injured person is under eighteen, the period does not begin until they turn eighteen. Where a person dies, the family has two years from the date of death, unless the period had already expired before the death, in which case a claim brought afterwards is out of time.

This clock is separate from everything else here. Claiming Section B does not extend it, and being paid Section B does not extend it.

What if the driver was uninsured or drove off?

Ninety days, in writing, and this one is short. The Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Program covers people injured in Alberta by a driver who is uninsured or who was never identified. Where the driver is unidentified, written notice must be served on the Administrator within ninety days after the cause of action arose.

Where the driver is identified but uninsured, give notice as soon as you can. The program is a last resort. If any insurance payment is available to you, even a partial one, you go there instead.

The lawsuit itself runs on the ordinary limitation period, so two years, and where the driver is unknown it is brought against the Administrator of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act rather than against a person. Compensation runs to two hundred thousand dollars, shared between claimants where more than one person was hurt in the same accident.

Which clocks run against your insurer rather than against you?

Several. They are easy to miss, because the forms only ever ask what you owe.

• Sixty days. Once your insurer has a completed prescribed claim form, amounts payable under Section B other than the loss of time benefit must be paid within sixty days.
• Thirty days, then every thirty days. The initial loss of time benefit must be paid within thirty days of the completed claim form reaching the insurer. Payments continue within each thirty day period after that while the insurer remains liable, provided you furnish proof of continuing disability when you are asked for it.
• The cost of the medical report. The insurer pays all expenses of completing the medical report portion of the claim form.
• No approval needed inside the protocols. Where the protocols apply, your practitioner treats and bills the insurer directly for the authorized visits.
• Two years to sue the insurer. Every action or proceeding against the insurer to recover a Section B claim must be commenced not later than two years after the cause of action against the insurer arose.

Which makes the date your completed claim form reached the insurer worth recording as carefully as any date of your own. Two of the five clocks above start from it, and nobody else is counting them for you.

What if someone died in the accident?

If this is the section you came for, we are sorry.

Section B pays a death benefit as a principal sum, set by the age and household status of the person who died as at the date of the accident. Funeral service expenses are covered up to six thousand one hundred and fifty dollars in respect of any one person. Grief counselling is covered up to five hundred dollars per family in respect of any one person, and it is payable to a spouse, an adult interdependent partner or another immediate family member.

The thirty day notice works the same way here, and someone can give it on the family's behalf. The separate claim against the driver at fault runs on the Limitations Act, so two years from the date of death, subject to the exception set out above.

Do I need a lawyer to make a Section B claim?

Not to start one. The AB-1 is the only prescribed form that is yours to complete, and someone can send it on your behalf, which matters if you are in hospital. Every other form on this page belongs to a health professional.

Inside the protocols you need no approval and no referral. Where the Diagnostic and Treatment Protocols Regulation applies to your injury, your physiotherapist or chiropractor can assess and treat you and bill your insurer directly, without waiting for anyone to say yes.

The doctor's fee for the medical report is not yours either. The regulation requires your insurer to pay all expenses incurred in completing the medical report portion of the prescribed claim form.

Where the ground gets harder is the two years. The limitation period to sue the driver cannot be extended by a court once it has begun, and where the driver was never identified the claim is brought against the Administrator of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act rather than against a person. Those are the points at which people commonly get advice.

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.

Keeping the record these deadlines depend on

Alberta puts most of your claim in the hands of health professionals filling in forms. What they write comes from what you tell them, and what you tell them comes from what you remembered on the day.

Which is why the dates worth keeping are small ones. The day you sent the AB-1 and how you sent it. The name of the person who answered the phone. The date the completed form reached the insurer, because two of your insurer's own clocks start there. Each protocol visit and which number it was. Every receipt, and which plan paid first.

Recovery First. Pressure Last.

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.

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This page is general information for people in Alberta. 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 the Alberta Superintendent of Insurance.