The OPCF 44R endorsement (the “Family Protection Endorsement”), commonly purchased with most Ontario automobile policies, provides good protection to family members who are injured by automobiles that carry inadequate (or no) insurance. In those instances, injured people who have Family Protection Endorsement coverage can look to their own insurance company to prop up their compensation to the level any at-fault (uninsured or underinsured) owner/operator would have been obligated to pay in damages.
In this recent case, the court was faced with a daughter injured in a car accident by a vehicle that was potentially underinsured, such that coverage was being sought by the daughter on the mother’s Family Protection Endorsement. To qualify, the daughter would need to be a “dependent relative.” This is typically a non-issue for youngsters, but in this case, the daughter was an adult living on her own. The daughter argued, however, that she had two residences: her own, and her mother’s home where she spent a few days a week helping her mother with her medical issues.
The court acknowledged that for the purpose of the Family Protection Endorsement, a person can have two residences, but in this case, the daughter simply was unable to convince the court that she had two residences. Based on the evidence, the daughter treated her own home as her residence. The few days she spent at her mother’s place did not make the mother’s home her daughter’s second residence: the daughter paid no rent, had no mail sent there, and had only a few personal belongings at her mother’s place, etc.
The daughter also argued that the court was unable to make this determination summarily (without a trial), but the court disagreed, concluding that the factual matrix pertinent to this issue was essentially complete, and that there was nothing to gain by deferring this issue to trial. From a tactical point of view, the daughter would have preferred to keep this issue open for trial in order to have the Family Protection Insurer remain involved (as a possible contributor to a future settlement). Instead, the Family Protection Insurer was summarily released from the claim.
Chaboyer et al v. Gill et al, 2022 ONSC 3452
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc3452/2022onsc3452.html