An Ontario tribunal sided with a driver's mental health claim, ordering Definity Insurance Company to pay for her psychological assessment.

The driver was hurt on March 14, 2023, when another vehicle pulled out of a private driveway and hit her car. She asked Definity to cover a psychological assessment and a program to treat ongoing pain. Definity classified her injuries as minor under Ontario's Minor Injury Guideline, or MIG, capping her benefits at $3,500 and leaving both requests unpaid. She brought the dispute to the Licence Appeal Tribunal.

To get out from under the MIG cap, a driver has to show injuries beyond the guideline's narrow list, or a pre-existing condition backed by strong medical evidence. The tribunal has also accepted that chronic pain or a psychological condition can be enough.

Adjudicator Yeta Herscher agreed the driver's psychological impairment was linked to the crash. The evidence included an August 2023 screening that found it could "suggest a provisional diagnosis of F43.2 adjustment disorder."

About six months later, she told her family doctor she was struggling with anxiety and a fear of driving. A few months after that, he referred her to a psychiatrist, believing she was dealing with post-traumatic stress from the crash. Two later reports - one psychological assessment and one from a hospital psychiatrist - diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder with anxious distress.

Herscher found the driver's medical evidence held together well across several assessments and matched her family doctor's notes. Definity's own psychological assessor, by contrast, cited a diagnostic label without ever explaining what it meant, so Herscher gave that report little weight.

As a result, Definity now has to pay $2,200 for the psychological assessment, and the driver is fully out from under the MIG cap.

The second request didn't fare as well. The driver wanted $3,700 for platelet-rich plasma injections to ease her chronic pain, a treatment her pain specialist had proposed alongside a corticosteroid option. Definity argued the treatment was experimental but didn't provide evidence to back that up. Herscher instead focused on whether the driver had shown why PRP injections, rather than the alternative the same specialist had suggested, were the right treatment for her - and found she hadn't. Without medical evidence tying the treatment to her recovery, that claim was turned down.

The tribunal released its decision on September 11, 2026, granting the application in part: the driver is out of the MIG, her $2,200 psychological assessment is covered, and her $3,700 PRP treatment claim is denied.