Manitoba MPI Injury Claim Deadlines
The dates that govern an MPI injury claim in Manitoba. Free. No email required. For drivers, passengers, cyclists and people on foot.
Manitoba runs on the Personal Injury Protection Plan through Manitoba Public Insurance. There is no lawsuit and no opposing insurer. What there is instead is a ladder of appeals, each with its own clock, a free government advocate that sits entirely outside MPI and a right to make MPI pay for the medical evidence you need to argue with them.
THE THREE CLOCKS
Ordered by how long you get, not by when they happen. Only one of the three runs inside a month, and it is the last step rather than the first. Not drawn to scale.
Inside the first month Longer, and each counts from its own letter
None of the three starts at the crash. Each one starts when a piece of paper reaches you, which is why the arrival date matters more in Manitoba than almost anywhere else. Everything below sets out what starts each clock, what happens if one has already run out, and what to write down at the moment it matters.
How soon do you have to report a crash to MPI?
As soon as possible, and Manitoba does not put a number on it. MPI does not publish a fixed deadline for making the Personal Injury Protection Plan application itself, and it advises reporting as soon as possible. That is why there is no number for it in the runway above, and why the verification block at the foot of this page says so plainly rather than quietly quoting one from another province.
A missing number is not permission to wait. The three deadlines that do carry numbers all begin with a decision, and no decision gets made until a claim exists. Reporting is what starts the process you may later be appealing inside.
Write down before you hang up. Your claim number. The date and time you reported. The name of the person you spoke to. What they told you happens next.
How long do you have to ask MPI for an internal review?
Sixty days from your case manager's decision. The application must be in writing. An internal review officer, who is not the case manager who decided it the first time, reconsiders the file and issues a written decision with reasons.
Two things in that are worth slowing down on. It has to be in writing, so a conversation with your case manager, however clear, is not an application. And the person who looks at it again is not the person who said no, which is the entire point of the step.
A written decision with reasons is the first document in this process that tells you exactly what you would have to argue against.
That written decision is also what starts the next clock, so the sixty days you spend here buys you the document the ninety days runs from.
When does the clock actually start on an MPI decision?
When the letter reaches you, not when it was written. Every deadline in Manitoba runs from receipt, and the date printed on the page is usually not the date it reached you.
Write the arrival date on the decision letter, in pen, on the day it arrives. It takes four seconds and it is the only record of that date that will ever exist.
Two of the three clocks say so on their face. The ninety days to file a Notice of Appeal runs from the day you receive the Internal Review Decision. The thirty days to seek leave in the Court of Appeal runs from receipt of the AICAC decision.
If you have been counting from the date printed at the top of a letter, you have been counting from the wrong day, and the error is in your favour.
Can you get your MPI claim file and have medical reports paid for?
Yes to both, and neither one happens unless you ask.
You have a right to request and review a copy of your bodily injury claim file under section 151(1) of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act. That means the adjuster notes, the medical opinions and the documents the decision actually rested on. You cannot argue against reasoning you have never read.
If you need medical reports to support your review, the invoices can be submitted to MPI for payment under section 148 of the Act and section 43 of Regulation 40/94. The evidence you need to challenge them is not something you have to fund yourself.
| What you can ask for | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| A copy of your bodily injury claim file | Section 151(1) of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act |
| Payment of the medical reports you need for a review | Section 148 of the Act and section 43 of Regulation 40/94 |
Ask for both as early as you can. A claim file takes time to arrive and a medical appointment takes longer than that, and the sixty days is already running while you wait for either of them.
How long do you have to appeal to AICAC in Manitoba?
Ninety days from the day you receive the Internal Review Decision. The Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission is an independent tribunal established by the Manitoba government, entirely separate from MPI. Appeals are heard by one commissioner or a panel of three.
Missing the ninety days is serious. The Commission can refuse to extend the time limit, and the appeal is then dismissed without anyone ever looking at whether you were right.
AICAC has the power to confirm the decision, vary it or set it aside altogether, and its decision binds both you and MPI.
That last line cuts both ways. A decision that binds MPI is worth having, and it is the reason this step exists. A decision that binds you is one you will not easily undo, because what comes after it is limited to questions of jurisdiction or law.
Which makes the hearing itself, rather than anything after it, the moment your file has to be ready.
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 Manitoba 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.
Who can help you appeal an MPI decision for free?
The Claimant Adviser Office. It is free, it is independent of both MPI and the appeal commission, and it exists for exactly this moment.
It is a Manitoba government advocacy office created specifically to help people appealing bodily injury decisions. A claimant adviser is assigned to your file. The office can carry out investigations and obtain expert opinions on your behalf. There is no charge and service is available in English and French.
Call the day the Internal Review Decision arrives. The office cannot help you at the internal review stage, but it can help you prepare and file the Notice of Appeal itself. So the moment that written decision lands is exactly when to pick up the phone, not after you have already filed alone.
Claimant Adviser Office
Winnipeg 204-945-7413
Toll free 1-800-282-8069 extension 7413
200 to 330 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg
8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday to Friday
Advisers do not handle vehicle damage or driver's licence disputes. For those, MPI's own Fair Practices Office reviews how claims are handled for fairness. It sits inside MPI but at arm's length from your claim.
How long do you have to appeal an AICAC decision to the Court of Appeal?
Thirty days from receiving the decision, and you need a judge's permission to go at all. Either side can go to the Manitoba Court of Appeal within thirty days of receiving the AICAC decision. That route is narrow. It is limited to questions of jurisdiction or law, and you need permission from a judge of the Court of Appeal to bring it.
Either side means MPI as well as you, so a decision in your favour is not necessarily the end of it either.
In practice this means AICAC is where the facts of your injury are decided. Disagreeing later with how the evidence was weighed is not a ground of appeal. Build the record before the hearing, not after it.
What happens if you missed an MPI or AICAC deadline?
It depends which one, and the honest answer for Manitoba is shorter than we would like it to be.
The ninety days to AICAC. The Commission can refuse to extend the time limit. The word doing the work there is can. A power to refuse an extension is a power to grant one, so a late Notice of Appeal is not automatically the end. What changes is that you are asking rather than filing, and if the answer is no, the appeal is dismissed without anyone ever looking at whether you were right.
The thirty days to the Court of Appeal. That route already needs permission from a judge, and it is already limited to questions of jurisdiction or law. Being late is one more thing you would be asking that judge to accept.
The sixty days for an internal review. We are not going to tell you what happens here, because our sources do not say. Ask MPI, and ask on the same day rather than after another week has gone.
Before any of that, check what you counted from. Every clock in Manitoba runs from receipt. If you have been counting from the date printed at the top of the letter, you may have days left that you did not know you had.
If you are already past a date, write down today why the delay happened, while you still remember it clearly. Which weeks you could not manage your own affairs. Who was helping you. When you first understood you were injured rather than shaken.
If you end up asking the Commission for time, that note is what you will be asking with, and it is worth more written this week than reconstructed next year.
Can you sue the driver who hit you in Manitoba?
Generally no. The Personal Injury Protection Plan replaces the right to sue for injuries from a road accident. For most people a PIPP claim is the only route to compensation, whoever caused the crash.
Which means the appeal ladder above is not a backup plan. It is the whole plan. Everything depends on what your file can show.
There is no other insurer to argue with and no settlement to negotiate, so the quality of your own file is the only variable you control.
It also means who was driving matters less than people expect. Compensation does not turn on who caused it, which is why this page is written for drivers, passengers, cyclists and people on foot alike. All of you are in the same process, and all of you appeal it the same way.
I was hurt in a vehicle at work. Does WCB apply too?
Yes, and it works nothing like this one. If you were injured in a vehicle while working, the Manitoba workers compensation system applies as well. There is no deadline to appeal a WCB decision, but there are short clocks inside the process that catch people. Our Manitoba WCB page sets those out.
Do not read "no deadline to appeal" as "no hurry". The dates that catch people in that system are the ones inside it, not the one at the end.
Do you need a lawyer to appeal an MPI decision?
Not to start one, and Manitoba is unusual in having a free alternative built into the system. The Claimant Adviser Office is a government advocacy office, independent of both MPI and the appeal commission. An adviser is assigned to your file, the office can carry out investigations and obtain expert opinions on your behalf, there is no charge, and you can be served in English or in French.
The paperwork itself is smaller than it sounds. An internal review application is a letter, in writing, inside sixty days. A request for your claim file is a request under section 151(1). And the medical report you need in order to argue can be invoiced to MPI under section 148 of the Act and section 43 of Regulation 40/94, so the one document that usually costs money is not necessarily yours to fund.
What the office cannot do is help you at the internal review stage. That first sixty days is yours to keep, which is the strongest argument on this page for writing the arrival date on the letter the day it lands.
What no adviser and 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 PIPP actually works, what it covers when there is nobody to sue or what to do when a case manager says no.
Recovering after a car accident in Manitoba 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: Province of Manitoba, Claimant Adviser Office, Automobile Injury Compensation Appeal Commission and Manitoba Public Insurance. MPI does not publish a fixed deadline for making the PIPP application itself and advises reporting as soon as possible, so we give no number for it here.
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
Every clock in Manitoba starts when a letter reaches you, and every appeal is decided on what your file shows rather than what you remember.
Two things decide how an injury claim goes. What you wrote down and whether you did the right thing at the right time for where you live. The National MVA Recovery Guide handles the first, the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs that a claim is eventually judged on. The Manitoba MVA Companion Guide handles the second, the deadlines on this page and the forms, boards and appeal routes behind them. 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.
Recovery First. Pressure Last.
EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The Manitoba 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 three clocks, with what starts each one
- Somewhere to write the arrival date on every letter MPI sends you
- The appeal ladder in order, from internal review to AICAC to the Court of Appeal
- Fillable on your phone, at 11pm, in bed
$24.99 · instant download · yours to keep
See the Manitoba MVA Companion GuideMost people take it with the National MVA Recovery Guide, the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs these dates hang on.
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 Manitoba. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules differ by province and change over time. Confirm anything specific to your situation with a lawyer, Manitoba Public Insurance or the Claimant Adviser Office.