What happened: An Ontario court found Intact breached its duty of good faith on a snow-collapse claim.
Who's involved: Intact Insurance Company and two policyholders with a rural property near Thunder Bay.
What's at stake: The policyholders wanted $237,000 in rebuild money now, plus $180,000 in punitive damages.
Why it matters: Not sharing contractor quotes while negotiating a cash settlement counted as a good faith breach.
Where it stands: Decided September 24, 2026, with $17,700 awarded and costs still to be settled.
Intact offered $74,000 to tear down two buildings flattened by snow. It already had demolition quotes of more than $100,000. The policyholder didn't know.
That detail helped shape a ruling released September 24, 2026 by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The court found Intact Insurance Company breached its duty of good faith in handling a claim for two large outbuildings that collapsed under heavy snow near Thunder Bay in April 2022.
The policyholders, a man and his common-law partner, had claims adding up to more than $450,000. The court awarded $17,700.
Intact confirmed coverage on May 13, 2022. By late July, its preferred contractors had priced work on both buildings, a Quonset hut and a wood frame building.
One contractor's estimates didn't reach the policyholders until January 29, 2026. The court said the evidence never adequately explained why.
In September 2022, Intact settled demolition and debris removal for $74,000, with the policyholder doing the work himself. He testified he thought the offer was very generous. Later, he learned Intact had demolition quotes in the range of over $100,000.
His policy promised "a right to know how insurers calculate price based on relevant facts." The court said the quotes "were clearly relevant," and keeping them out of the negotiation breached the duty of good faith. As it turned out, the $74,000 wasn't enough to finish demolishing the Quonset hut.
That summer was a wet one in Thunder Bay. The policyholder repeatedly asked Intact for storage containers or indoor storage for contents, including vintage snowmobiles left outside after the collapse.
Intact never acted on those requests. Photos at trial showed rooms of the couple's home packed with salvaged belongings, and storage costs weren't settled until August 2023.
Intact said the request "slipped through the cracks." The court's response: "'Falling through the cracks' isn't a good enough excuse when dealing with a sophisticated insurance company that has promised peace of mind."
Timing was the third problem. The two sides went through Ontario's appraisal process, where appraisers and an umpire put a number on the loss, and it wrapped up in November 2024. Intact paid the depreciated value of both buildings, known as actual cash value, on December 12, 2024. The court found Intact could have paid for the wood frame building by September 2023.
The policyholders' biggest ask was $237,000, the gap between that payout and the full cost of rebuilding, paid right away.
Their case leaned on the policy wording. It pays the lower amount if the insured decides not to rebuild. They had decided to rebuild, so why wait?
The court wasn't persuaded. The wording was clear: rebuild or don't. A decision shows in what you do, the court said, offering this image: "A decision to jump off a high bridge into a river is hard to deny or reverse once you take the second step off the ledge into the air."
Work on the wood frame building is underway, and Intact owes progress payments as it goes. First, the policyholder has to spend the roughly $8,000 left from his earlier payout and send Intact invoices or estimates.
The Quonset hut is further back. Demolition still isn't finished, and under this policy "a building has to be demolished before it can be rebuilt."
The court turned down the $180,000 in damages meant to punish Intact. It found the insurer's conduct wasn't malicious or high-handed, and it accepted that the spring of 2022 was a catastrophic event for the region.
Instead, it put a price on each slip: 5% of the $180,000 paid for the wood frame building, 5% of the $74,000 demolition deal, and $5,000 for storage. Total: $17,700.
A separate $35,000 claim for the policyholder's mental distress also failed. The court found his evidence on that point not credible given his business and legal background, and said the claim had an air of "throw everything up against the wall and see what sticks."
The court also kept the appraisal paperwork out of the trial, ruling that appraisers and umpires can't be made to reveal how they reached their numbers.
Costs are covered by an earlier agreement between the parties. The decision doesn't say whether either side plans to appeal.
Paying exactly what the policy requires won't shield an insurer that leaves relevant quotes undisclosed during settlement talks or lets a storage request go unanswered.
