A pick-up truck slammed into a sleeping man's home. Intact said that did not make him an accident victim. Ontario's tribunal disagreed.
The Licence Appeal Tribunal's preliminary decision in Poisson v. Intact Insurance Company, 2026 CanLII 56639 (ON LAT), released June 8, 2026, tackled a question with real consequences for accident benefits adjusters: when does a vehicle crash you do not see still count as your accident?
Wilfred Poisson and his partner were asleep on the second floor of their house on June 29, 2023, when a pick-up truck crashed into the first floor at 4:30 a.m. The smoke detectors triggered flashing strobe lights and a voice command yelling "Fire Fire Fire." Poisson went downstairs, saw the white truck embedded in the house with its headlights beaming through the wall, and spotted someone lying on the driveway he thought was dead. He called 911.
The crash caused extensive damage. Poisson lost the use of his home from the incident until at least July 5, 2024, and was forced to change accommodations numerous times. He applied for accident benefits under his personal motor vehicle policy and sought funding for psychological treatment.
Intact denied coverage. It argued Poisson was not an "insured person" involved in an "accident" under section 3(1) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule. The insurer's position was that his psychological injuries arose from the aftermath of the collision - the property damage, the prostrate driver, the home alarms - rather than from the use or operation of the vehicle itself. It leaned on tribunal rulings that someone who hears or witnesses an accident's aftermath is not "involved" in it.
Adjudicator Melanie Malach applied the two-part test from Economical Mutual Insurance Company v. Caughy. The purpose test was met because driving a vehicle is an ordinary and well-known activity to which automobiles are put. On causation, she found Poisson's injuries would not have occurred "but for" the truck driving into his house, with no intervening act severing the chain.
The medical record carried weight. Psychologist Dr. Shreekant Sharma diagnosed PTSD, noting Poisson woke in panic at a loud bang. A later assessment by Kaplan and Levitt Psychologists found him "totally panicked after the impact, and the smoke detectors went off."
Malach distinguished the insurer's authorities. This was not a case of someone arriving at a scene after the fact. Poisson was inside the house when the truck hit it, and the dominant feature of the incident was the crash itself, the aspect that most directly caused his injuries. She found his impairments flowed from being jolted awake, not from later viewing the wreckage.
The tribunal held that Poisson was "involved" in an accident and meets the definition of an insured person. The application proceeds to a hearing on the substantive issues. The decision does not resolve the benefits claim - it clears the threshold question of whether Poisson can pursue one at all.
