The questions people ask us most, answered properly.
Plain answers about deadlines, denials, who can claim and how our guides work. No fine print.
Right after an injury
The first week decides more than most people realize.
What should I do in the first few days?
Five things, in this order.
See a doctor, even if you feel fine. This is the one that matters most and the one people skip. Concussions and soft tissue injuries often show nothing on day one. A gap between the injury and your first medical visit is the single most common reason an injury gets questioned later, and it is the one thing you can never go back and fix.
Say every symptom out loud at that appointment. Headache, dizziness, nausea, ringing, stiffness, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating. If it is not spoken it is not written down, and if it is not written down it did not happen as far as your file is concerned. Nobody will ask you a checklist of questions. You have to volunteer it.
Report it yourself. Do not assume your employer's report or the other driver's insurer covers you. Your own report is the one that carries your account of what happened.
Photograph everything before anything moves. Vehicles from every angle, plates, the wider scene showing lane position, signals, skid marks, the weather, the light. And any visible injury, with the date showing. Bruising darkens over several days, so photograph again later.
Get a name and phone number from every witness. Witnesses disappear within minutes and are almost impossible to find afterwards. A first name and a number is enough.
Our free First 72 Hours checklist walks through all of it in order.
What should I actually be writing down?
Three things, and the first is the one almost everyone leaves out.
What you could not do that you could do before. Pain is nearly impossible for anyone else to picture. A number out of ten means little to a stranger reading a file. A week where you could not lift your child, could not sit through a shift, or had to hand a task to a colleague is concrete, and it is what actually demonstrates loss.
Every conversation, on the day it happens. Date, who you spoke to, what was said, what was promised and by when, and who else was there. Adjusters and case managers say things on the phone that never appear in writing. A supervisor pressing you to come back early carries real weight and leaves no trace unless you make one.
Who you told, and when. This connects your own notes to the medical record, which is the record decisions are actually made from. A symptom you recorded privately but never mentioned to a clinician has not reached the file that counts.
Our free trackers are built around exactly these three, so you are not inventing a format while you are unwell.
Do I have to report to the police as well as my insurer?
They are two separate obligations with two separate clocks, and meeting one does not satisfy the other.
Police involvement is generally required where anyone is injured, where a pedestrian or cyclist was struck, where impaired driving or another criminal act is suspected, where public property was damaged, or where the damage crosses a dollar threshold. In Ontario that threshold rose to $5,000 on 1 January 2025, up from $2,000. Many pages online still quote the old figure. Below the threshold and with no injuries, Ontario gives you 24 hours to attend a Collision Reporting Centre instead.
Your insurer is a separate notification, and in Ontario that is within seven days if you intend to claim accident benefits.
Thresholds and rules differ by province, so check your own on our province pages.
I was hurt at work but my employer has not reported it. What now?
Report it yourself. You do not need your employer's cooperation to open a claim, and waiting for them costs you time you may need.
Employers are generally required to report a workplace injury within a few days of learning about it, and in some jurisdictions they must report even where you lose no time from work. If yours has not, that is their compliance problem rather than a barrier to your claim.
Two things worth doing at the same time. Ask for a copy of whatever your employer did submit, because it tells you what version of events the board received. And in most provinces your employer cannot lawfully pressure or discourage you from reporting an injury, filing a claim or appealing a decision. If that is happening, write down each instance with dates, and tell the free worker advisor service in your province about it as well as dealing with the claim itself.
Deadlines and time limits
The part that ends more claims than the injury ever does.
How long do I have to report a car accident to my insurance?
Sooner than most people expect, and it varies by province. Ontario is among the tightest, at seven days to tell your insurer you intend to apply for accident benefits.
If you are already past your window, do not assume it is over. In most systems a late notice needs a reasonable explanation rather than being automatically fatal. Hospitalization, severe injury and simply being unable to function are all understood reasons. Call your insurer today rather than tomorrow, and write down now why the delay happened while you still remember it clearly, because that explanation is what you will be asked for.
There is also a second document with its own clock. In Ontario the accident benefits application, the OCF-1, is due within 30 days of the day it reaches you, not 30 days from the accident. A great many pages online state that wrong.
Your exact dates are on our province pages.
Is it too late to claim if my accident was months ago?
Usually not, and it is worth asking rather than assuming.
There are two separate clocks and they get confused constantly. Notification is the short one, measured in days, and it is about telling your insurer or board that something happened. The limitation period is the long one, measured in years, and it is about starting legal proceedings. Commonly two years in most provinces, though it differs, and it can be considerably shorter for a claim against a government body.
Being late on the first does not necessarily affect the second. And a late notice generally needs an explanation rather than being refused outright.
Either way, start documenting today. A record that begins at month four is worth far more than one reconstructed at month twelve, and nothing you write down now becomes less useful later.
How long do I have to appeal a decision I disagree with?
This varies more than anything else in Canadian injury law, and the range is genuinely startling. Some examples from workplace injury systems.
- Saskatchewan and Manitoba have no deadline at all. You can ask for a review of a decision on your claim at any time.
- Newfoundland and Labrador gives you 30 days, then 30 days again. The tightest pair in the country, with an absolute outer limit of one year even where an extension is granted.
- Nova Scotia and PEI give 90 days for the first appeal, then only 30 for the tribunal. People relax at the generous stage and get caught at the tight one.
- New Brunswick gives 90 days, then a full year. Though health and safety decisions run on seven days.
- Alberta gives a year at each of two stages.
- Ontario gives six months for most decisions but only 30 days for anything about return to work, which are the decisions that affect your daily life most.
- Quebec gives 30 days for administrative review or 60 to go straight to the Tribunal, and only 10 days for certain matters like temporary assignment or preventive withdrawal.
- Yukon runs from 14 days to a full year depending entirely on what you are appealing.
Because the spread is this wide, never work from a figure you read somewhere general. Read the date on your own decision letter and check your own province.
Every one of these is set out on our province pages, with the forms and the free help available in each.
What is a limitation period, in plain terms?
It is the outer deadline for starting a legal claim in court. Once it passes, the right to sue is generally gone regardless of how strong the case was.
It is different from every other deadline in your file. Notifying an insurer, filing an application, objecting to a decision and appealing to a tribunal are all administrative steps inside a claim. A limitation period sits outside all of that and is set by statute.
Two things make it easy to miss. It usually runs from the date of the injury rather than from the date you realized how serious it was, which matters for injuries that develop slowly. And in many workers' compensation systems you have given up the right to sue your employer in exchange for coverage, so the limitation period may apply to a different party than you assume.
This is the one question on this page where the answer is genuinely worth a conversation with a lawyer rather than a website, because getting it wrong is not recoverable.
Who can claim
More people than think they can.
Can a passenger claim after a car accident?
Yes. You do not need to have been driving and you do not need your own auto policy. In Quebec the SAAQ covers everyone hurt in a road accident regardless of who was at fault.
One important change if you are in Ontario. Since 1 July 2026, only medical, rehabilitation and attendant care remain mandatory in an Ontario policy. Income replacement, non-earner, caregiver, dependant care and funeral benefits became optional, and those optional benefits now reach only the named insured, a spouse, dependants and listed drivers. Some passengers who would have been covered in June may no longer be eligible for them.
Policies renew unchanged unless the holder asks in writing, so most people will not discover what they no longer carry until the day they need it. Our Ontario deadlines page sets out what changed.
I was hit while walking or cycling. Can I claim?
In most provinces yes, and this surprises people who assume coverage follows the car rather than the person.
Injury benefits after a collision generally reach anyone hurt in it, including pedestrians and cyclists, and generally without needing your own auto policy. Quebec's public plan is explicit about covering everyone hurt on the road.
The Ontario change of 1 July 2026 applies here too, and it hits this group hardest. Pedestrians and cyclists never chose an insurance policy, so where the optional benefits now reach only a named insured, a spouse, dependants and listed drivers, some people struck while walking or cycling fall outside them. It is worth reading the detail rather than assuming either way.
Can I be dismissed for being injured?
This depends enormously on where you are, and it is the area where provinces differ most sharply.
Quebec has the strongest protection in the country. Section 240 of its workplace injury legislation gives you a right to return to work lasting one year where your employer has twenty or fewer workers, and two years where it has more. A separate complaint route exists if an employer sanctions you for having claimed.
Ontario carries a re-employment obligation where your employer regularly employs twenty or more workers and you had worked there continuously for at least a year before the injury. If you are dismissed within six months of returning, your employer has to satisfy the board that the dismissal had nothing to do with your injury.
British Columbia introduced a duty to maintain employment on 1 January 2024, on a similar twenty worker and one year test, ending at the two year anniversary of the injury.
Alberta repealed its reinstatement duty in April 2021. There is no longer a statutory obligation to give your job back, replaced by a mutual duty to cooperate. It still applies to injuries dated between September 2018 and March 2021.
Separately from all of that, human rights law in every province treats a workplace injury as a disability and obliges your employer to accommodate you, regardless of company size or length of service. That route has its own time limits and does not wait for a compensation board.
When something goes wrong
A denial is a decision, not the end of the road.
What happens if my claim is denied?
It happens far more often than people expect, and it is a step in a process rather than a verdict.
First, get the reason in writing. You cannot answer a denial you only heard on the phone. If you are told a decision has been made and no letter arrives, ask for one. The written wording is what any challenge has to respond to, so copy it out exactly rather than paraphrasing it.
Second, note the date on that letter. Your window almost always runs from the decision date rather than from when you opened the envelope.
Third, understand what an appeal actually reviews. In most systems it looks at the specific decision and the specific errors in it, not your claim as a whole. A general sense that the process was unfair gives a decision maker nothing to act on. A dated note showing a symptom you reported that never reached a report gives them something concrete.
Fourth, get help. It is free and it is good. Most provinces run a government-funded worker adviser office that will assess whether your case is supported by evidence and represent you if it is. In the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, that office reported that 93 percent of the files it resolved in 2024 never needed a formal appeal at all. Most problems are solvable earlier than people think by somebody who knows what to ask for.
Contacts for every province are on our province pages.
Do I have to give my insurer a recorded statement?
Your policy generally requires you to cooperate and provide information about the claim, so this is not usually something you can simply decline. What you can shape is how it happens.
You may ask what the interview will cover before it begins. You may ask for time to prepare rather than doing it on the spot when they call, and that is a reasonable request rather than an obstructive one. You may ask whether someone can be present. And you may ask for a copy of the recording afterwards, which is worth doing.
Two things matter more than anything else once it starts. Accuracy beats speed. If you do not remember something, say that you do not remember, rather than estimating. A guess offered under pressure becomes a fact in your file and you will be held to it. And write down what you said as soon as you are off the call, because your account of that conversation may be the only one you can reach later.
Many people speak to a representative before giving a recorded statement, particularly where the injury is serious or fault is contested. Our free correspondence tracker has a page for statements and interviews recording who took it, how long it lasted, whether you received a copy and anything you would put differently now.
Should I get a copy of my claim file?
Yes, and earlier than you think you need it.
You are entitled to your file in every Canadian system. Some provinces give you one free copy and charge for further ones. Some require a written request on a disclosure form. Some email you a link to a PDF.
Reading it is how you discover three things you cannot learn any other way. What your employer actually wrote. What your medical reports actually say, which is often not what you remember being told. And what is missing, which is usually the real reason a decision went the way it did and is completely invisible from outside.
Two systems make this especially important. Manitoba's Appeal Commission decides from your actual claim file, so whatever is not on it is not in front of the panel. And in Newfoundland and Labrador you may only call witnesses at an external review who have already submitted documents on your file, which means a witness statement is something to gather in week one rather than when you decide to appeal.
My employer says there is no modified work for me. What are my options?
Start by getting your restrictions in writing, in the words your provider used. Almost every dispute about modified work is decided by comparing what you were offered against what your provider said you could do, so that document is the foundation of everything else.
Then record every offer, including informal ones made in passing. What the work involved, what your restrictions said at the time, and specifically where the two did not match. Declining work that genuinely conflicts with your restrictions is reasonable. Declining work with nothing written down looks like refusal, and in several provinces a board can reduce or suspend benefits where it decides suitable work was refused.
If work is offered that does not fit, say so in writing and keep a copy. Never decline in conversation alone.
Also record your own cooperation, because you carry an obligation too. Appointments attended, forms returned on time, calls answered, problems reported promptly. That list is your defence if anyone questions your effort, and it is far easier to keep as you go than to reconstruct.
Our free return to work tracker is built around this comparison, with a cooperation record inside it.
Is free help available, and where?
Yes, and it is one of the best kept secrets in the country. Most provinces fund an independent office that gives injured workers free advice and often full representation at appeals. Your adviser works for you rather than for the board.
- Ontario Office of the Worker Adviser, for non-unionized workers
- British Columbia Workers' Advisers Office
- Alberta Advisor Office for Alberta Workers' Compensation
- Saskatchewan Injured Worker Appeal Services, formerly the Office of the Workers' Advocate
- Manitoba Worker Advisor Office, 204-945-5787 or 1-800-282-8069 extension 5787
- Nova Scotia Workers' Advisers Program, 1-800-774-4712 on the mainland or 1-800-890-6786 in Cape Breton
- New Brunswick Advocates Services, 1-844-530-0282
- Newfoundland and Labrador worker advisors through the NL Federation of Labour
- Northwest Territories and Nunavut Workers' Advisor Office, covering both territories
- Yukon Workers' Advocate Office, independent of the board
If you are in a union, start with your local. In Quebec there is no government worker adviser office, so unionized workers go to their union and others usually turn to community groups that defend injured workers, or to a lawyer.
About our guides
What they are, what they cost and what they will not do.
Which guide do I need, National, Provincial or both?
Most people need both, because each holds something the other cannot.
The National Recovery Guide holds the daily record. Symptoms, appointments, conversations, costs, what you could not do this week. That part of a claim is the same in every province and no jurisdiction writes it down for you.
The Provincial Companion Guide holds the local system. Your insurer or board, the forms, the deadlines, the appeal routes and what your employer does and does not owe you.
On their own each leaves a gap. A national guide cannot tell you your local deadline. A provincial guide cannot follow you through eighteen months of appointments. Together they cover the whole of it.
What is the difference between the free and full editions?
The free edition is not a sample with the useful parts removed. It runs on exactly the same grid as the full one, with fewer weeks or fewer entries.
So the pain tracker gives you four weeks free and twelve in the full edition. The physiotherapy tracker gives sixteen sessions free and forty eight. The appointment tracker gives six and sixteen.
Because the layout is identical, nothing you record in a free edition is wasted if you carry on. Start free. Upgrade only if you run out of pages.
Will these work on my phone, or do I have to print them?
Both. Every guide and tracker is a fillable form you can type into on a phone, a tablet or a computer, and print if you prefer.
If a box will not accept typing on an iPad, it is the app rather than the file. The Files app and Quick Look display form fields but do not reliably let you edit them. Adobe Acrobat Reader, PDF Expert and Apple Books all work correctly.
On a computer, any modern PDF reader will do. In a browser, Chrome and Edge handle form fields well.
How is my information kept private?
Your records never come to us. The guides are files you download and fill in on your own device, so what you write stays where you keep it. We have no access to it, no copy of it and no way to retrieve it.
That is deliberate. A recovery record contains some of the most sensitive information a person has, and the safest place for it is not a company's server.
It also means the responsibility is yours. Keep a backup somewhere, because a lost phone should not cost you eighteen months of records. And if you are sharing a device, remember that a filled-in PDF is readable by anyone who opens it.
When you buy, we hold what any store holds, your email address and your order. Nothing from inside your guide.
Is this legal or insurance advice?
No, and it is worth being precise about the difference.
We are a documentation companion. We help you keep a clear, dated record and understand the shape of the system you are in, so that your conversations with the people who do give advice are better ones. We are not lawyers, doctors or insurers, and nothing on this site or in our guides is legal, medical or insurance advice.
What that means practically. Where we state a deadline, we name the source and the date we last checked it, because rules change and we would rather you verify than trust us blindly. Where a question genuinely needs professional judgement, such as a limitation period or a contested medical opinion, we say so rather than answering it.
Every provincial page on this site shows its own last-verified date. If you find something wrong, write to us and we will correct it publicly.
Do you cover my province or territory?
Yes, all ten provinces and all three territories, on both the motor vehicle and workplace injury lines. Quebec is also available in French.
Each jurisdiction has its own guide rather than a generic one with a provincial appendix, because the systems genuinely differ. Saskatchewan has no appeal deadline. Newfoundland gives thirty days. Alberta abolished the duty to reinstate. Quebec protects it for two years. None of that is guessable from the injury.
What about refunds?
Because the guides are digital and delivered instantly, please read the description carefully before you buy. Every product page says what is inside, how many weeks or entries it holds and which line it is built for.
If anything goes wrong with your download, or you have bought the wrong version by mistake, write to us at Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will make it right. We would rather sort it out than have you stuck with something that does not fit.
If you are unsure which one you need, start with a free starter edition. It costs nothing and it uses the same layout as the full version.
Still have a question?
We read every message. Whether it is a question, a problem with your download or something you need someone to hear, reach out.
Email Recovery@hurtsquare.caHurt Square is a documentation companion. We are not lawyers, doctors or insurers, and nothing here is legal, medical or insurance advice.
If you are in distress or thinking about harming yourself, the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline is available across Canada by phone or text, at any hour, in English and French.
Last verified July 2026. We re-check these answers quarterly. If you find something wrong here, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.