The Ontario Court of Appeal has denied fleet coverage, ruling that no request for coverage means no duty to defend.
The court's decision, released July 30, 2026, overturns a Superior Court of Justice ruling that had ordered The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, doing business as Travelers Canada, to defend and indemnify West York Sales and Leasing Inc. over a 2017 Honda Civic involved in an accident on August 25, 2020.
Dominion had issued a fleet automobile policy to 8182485 Canada Inc., operating as Platinum Car and Truck Rental, which had leased the vehicle from West York. The policy ran from September 15, 2019 to September 15, 2020, and was modified by the Ontario Policy Change Form Monthly Reporting Basis Fleet endorsement, known as OPCF 21A, which lets fleet operators add or remove vehicles from month to month.
Platinum did not include the vehicle on the schedule filed when the policy began. It first appeared on the monthly fleet report for August 2020, submitted September 29, 2020 - fourteen days after the filing deadline and more than a month after the accident. Neither Platinum nor West York disclosed the accident to Dominion until 2023, after both were named as defendants in a lawsuit.
At issue was OPCF 21A(c), a capitalized clause providing that vehicles owned or leased before a policy's effective date, and not listed on the original schedule, are not covered "until a request for coverage has been filed" with the insurer, with no retroactive effect. The application judge had found those limiting words carried no real meaning. Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Thorburn disagreed, holding that the capitalized wording had to be given effect and that insurers are entitled to assess risk before extending coverage.
The court found the monthly fleet report could arguably serve as a request for coverage, since the term is undefined and coverage clauses are interpreted broadly. Even so, coverage could only begin on September 29, 2020, when the request was made - not retroactively to the accident date. Because coverage was therefore never triggered for this accident, the court held that relief from forfeiture, which the application judge had granted even though West York had not sought it, could not apply, since that remedy is only available once coverage has been triggered under the policy.
The court also addressed West York's undisclosed partial settlement with its broker, Baird MacGregor Insurance Brokers LP, which surfaced only during cross-examination. The panel found no resulting prejudice to Dominion and no obligation on West York's part to disclose it, since West York was not a party to the underlying broker litigation.
The Court of Appeal allowed Dominion's appeal, awarding it partial indemnity costs of $35,000 covering both the appeal and the proceeding below.
For claims and underwriting teams handling commercial fleets, the ruling underscores that a monthly reporting mechanism used to calculate premiums does not automatically extend coverage backward to vehicles omitted from the original schedule, even where the insurer accepted premiums without objection.
