Hit and Run Victims Stripped of Essential Accident Benefits

Dave Shellnutt

800.725.0754

dave@thebikinglawyer.ca

www.thebikinglawyer.ca

July 20, 2026

Hon. Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario

Premier's Office Room 281

Main Legislative Building, Queen's Park

Toronto, ON M7A 1A5

Director of Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund (MVACF)

Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement

222 Jarvis Street, 7th Floor

Toronto, OM M7A 0B6

Hon. Peter Bethlenfalvy, Minister of Finance

Ministry of Finance

​​​​​​​Frost Building South 7th Floor

7 Queen's Park Cres.

Toronto, ON M7A 1Y7

Dear Premier Ford, Director MVACF and Minister of Finance,

RE: Hit & Run Victims Stripped of Supports

Victims of hit and runs who traditionally accessed critical post-collision supports through the Province’s Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund have had life saving supports taken away as a result of the July 1, 2026, auto insurance changes.

These victims did not choose reduced coverage. They did not decline any benefit. They were never offered a policy or an opportunity to purchase protection. Nevertheless, because claims administered by the Fund are now limited to the newly reduced mandatory benefits, they have lost access to income replacement, non-earner, lost educational expense, death, funeral and other benefits that were previously available.

On Thursday July 16, 2026, Premier Ford, you indicated to CTV, “Honestly, that’s the first time I’ve heard of this one”.

On behalf of people involved in automobile collisions in Ontario, this oversight and the Ministry of Finance’s response with respect to major auto insurance changes affecting many Ontarians is troubling and concerning.

I hope to qualify my concern and request your Government reinstate all optional Accident Benefits for Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund claimants injured in hit and runs or hit by uninsured motorists. [I also recommend that the Ontario Government require transit services, municipalities and commercial operators retain optional benefits that uninsured members of the public claim through their insurance following a collision.]

The unintended consequence

On July 1, 2026, reforms made many Accident Benefits optional. Medical, rehabilitation and attendant-care benefits remain mandatory, but benefits that are essential to most crash victims such as income replacement, non-earner, lost educational expense, death and funeral benefits are now optional.

The reforms also restrict optional benefits to a defined group connected to an automobile policy: the named insured, the named insured’s spouse and dependents, and drivers specifically listed on the policy.

After the reforms came into force, I contacted the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund to determine how these changes would affect its claimants. I was advised that the Fund would no longer provide the newly optional benefits.

That outcome may follow automatically from the wording of the amended Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, but it does not follow from the stated consumer-choice rationale for the reforms.

A motorist purchasing insurance can decide whether to retain or decline optional benefits. A pedestrian struck by a hit-and-run driver cannot. A cyclist injured by an uninsured motorist cannot. A wheelchair user struck while in a crosswalk cannot.

There is no consumer choice in a Fund claim.

The people affected

The Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund is Ontario’s payor of last resort. It exists to protect people injured where no automobile insurer is available to respond, including people injured by unidentified hit-and-run drivers and uninsured motorists.

Both hit and runs and driving without insurance are common occurrences on Ontario’s roadways. I suspect the creation of the Fund decades ago was acknowledgement of that sad reality.

The Fund is accessible if the person struck and injured by the uninsured or unidentified motorist does not have their own auto insurance. Typically, this is a pedestrian, wheelchair user or cyclist. From the Fund, these injured people can receive Accident Benefits and claim up to $200,000.00 by way of civil claim for pain and suffering and other heads of damages not covered by the Accident Benefits amounts. These options mimic injured peoples’ rights in a non hit and run collision or where someone has their own auto insurance policy.  

About 40% of people in Ontario do not have their own auto insurance. They are pedestrians, mobility devices users, cyclists, seniors, public bus and streetcar passengers, passengers in Ubers/taxis/airport shuttles (more on this group of people below), the list goes on.

We have over the years had dozens of hit and run/uninsured motorist cases before the Fund, and we are just one law firm. We have seen firsthand the essential safety net deployed by the Fund to help support people who have suffered terrible injury through no fault of their own.

With the July 1, 2026, auto insurance changes, that support is markedly less. Income replacement benefits prior to their removal could amount to $400.00/week to age 65 (with a reduction thereafter). For a young working contractor who is unable to return to a job for months or years due to severe injury, that is meaningful wage support. Even if access to income replacement benefits was only required for a few months, it could mean the difference between paying rent or paying for food for the family.

Although an injured person may pursue lost income through a civil claim, that is not an adequate substitute because it is delayed by several years.

Rent, food and childcare expenses cannot be deferred and are due immediately.

In addition, the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act limits the amount payable by the Fund for damages arising from an occurrence to $200,000.00. A person with a catastrophic injury may exhaust the available civil recovery through a general damages/pain and suffering award along, to say nothing of future-care or income-loss claims.

Removing optional Accident Benefits therefore does more than rearrange the source of compensation. It reduces the total protection available to Ontarians and eliminates the immediate and ongoing support that seriously injured people need while their civil cases proceed.

Our firm represented a cyclist whose knee was shattered when he was struck by a motor vehicle. He required two surgeries and could not return to his former physical employment.

Through the Fund’s accident-benefits system, he received income replacement and educational support for approximately three years. The income replacement benefit amounted to approximately $62,400.

That support kept a roof over his head while he recovered. The educational benefit allowed him to complete online schooling, retrain and obtain less physically demanding employment.

The system worked exactly as a public safety net should. It supported an injured person during a period of crisis and helped him return to productive employment.

Under the post-July 1 regime, a similarly situated person may receive neither the income support nor the educational assistance that made that outcome possible. Instead of facilitating recovery and a return to work, Ontario risks shifting the cost to Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program, the health-care system, and homeless shelters, all at massive cost to regular taxpayers, much higher than the cost of paying income replacement benefits.

This is not meaningful consumer choice. It is a transfer of financial risk from the automobile insurance system onto injured people and our publicly funded systems. It is profoundly harmful to the public and will result in injured people being evicted onto the street if they cannot pay their rent or mortgage.

If saving individuals money was the reason provided to the public for the auto insurance changes, then what was the rationale behind cutting these supports from the Fund? Cutting these benefits is likely to increase expenses borne by the public, not decrease them.

The purpose of the Fund is to protect Ontarians in need following a hit and run. Are trivial costs savings (if that is even the case) for the Province being prioritized over supporting a seriously injured Ontarian/taxpayer in need?

The same goes for public transit services across Ontario, passengers in Ubers and pedestrians or cyclists hit by public service vehicles (this spring we had cyclists doored by a police cruiser and fire truck respectively).

Any bus passenger or Uber rider who does not have their own auto insurance and is injured while riding the bus to work or taking their kids to the library now, without any say in the matter, has less support. Their recovery, their survival post-collision are needlessly put at increased risk.

Requested action

We respectfully ask the Government of Ontario to:

1. Immediately restore all formerly mandatory Accident Benefits for eligible Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund claimants, including income replacement, non-earner, lost educational expense, death and funeral benefits;

2. Treat Fund claims as a distinct class of claims under the Insurance Act and the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, recognizing that Fund claimants did not select, purchase or decline insurance coverage;

3. Apply the correction retroactively to accidents occurring on or after July 1, 2026, so that people injured during the period between the reforms and the corrective amendment are not permanently disadvantaged;

4. Review the effect of the reforms on passengers and other members of the public who are required to claim through policies they did not purchase or control, including public-transit passengers and occupants of taxis, rideshare vehicles and commercial transportation vehicles.

We also request written answers to the following questions:

• Did the Government consider the effect of the reforms on Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund claimants before Ontario Regulation 383/24 was enacted?

• Was a financial, equality or social assistance impact analysis conducted concerning pedestrians, cyclists, mobility-device users and other uninsured road users which constitute about 40% of Ontarians?

• What annual savings does the Province expect to realize from denying the newly optional benefits to Fund claimants? What annual cost increases does the Province predict as a result of crash victims losing critical support?

• How many Fund claimants received income replacement, non-earner, educational, death or funeral benefits in each of the five years preceding July 1, 2026?

• Will the Government commit to introducing a corrective regulation?

Premier, on July 16, 2026, you reportedly indicated that this was the first time you had heard about this consequence of the reforms. Now that it has been brought to the Government’s attention, there is an opportunity to address it promptly.

No person in Ontario, be they a pedestrian, cyclist or mobility-device user should lose essential income support because the driver who struck them fled the scene or broke the law by driving without insurance.

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with your offices and representatives of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund to discuss the necessary amendments. Given that the changes are already in force and new victims may be affected every day, we respectfully request a substantive written response within 30 days.

Kind Regards,

Dave Shellnutt

Lawyer & Advocate

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