Sonnet Insurance won a fire loss coverage fight in New Brunswick - but not before a court flagged serious gaps in its digital records.
In a decision filed April 30, 2026, the New Brunswick Court of King's Bench sided with Sonnet Insurance Company on a vacancy exclusion defence, dismissing a homeowner's claim over a 2021 fire that destroyed his property. But the ruling in Trecartin v Sonnet Insurance Company, 2026 NBKB 96, also exposed a notable blind spot for the digital insurer: it could not produce the original online application at the centre of its own misrepresentation argument.
The case began when John Philip Trecartin obtained home insurance from Sonnet in July of 2021 for a property at 2 Point Road in Nerepis, New Brunswick. That property was destroyed by fire on November 3, 2021. Sonnet denied the claim on three grounds - vacancy, misrepresentation in the insurance application, and an undisclosed material change in risk.
The vacancy question proved decisive. The policy stated there would be no coverage when the insured's house had "been vacant for more than 30 consecutive days." Vacancy was defined as meaning "all residents have moved out with no intent to return or the house does not contain furnishings or household belongings sufficient to make it habitable."
Trecartin argued the home was furnished - listing items from a leather couch and beds to a refrigerator and cleaning supplies - and that he visited regularly with plans to return. The court agreed the furnishings were enough to make the property habitable and that switching from public utility power to a generator did not change that.
But Justice Maya Hamou drew a sharp line between visiting a property and living in one. Trecartin was legally required to reside in Moncton due to parole conditions. While he visited the property frequently - sometimes staying overnight with his daughter or son - the court found those visits did not amount to residency. Following the British Columbia Court of Appeal's reasoning in Coburn v Family Insurance Solutions, 2014 BCCA 73, the court read the vacancy definition as disjunctive: only one of its two conditions needed to be met. The property, the court concluded, had been vacant for over 30 consecutive days.
That was enough to deny coverage. But the court's treatment of Sonnet's other arguments is where things get instructive for the industry.
On misrepresentation, Sonnet claimed Trecartin had falsely described the property as owner-occupied when applying for insurance. The problem? Sonnet could not produce the actual 2021 application. What it did produce was a 2025 application template and illegible internal database screenshots. The court was not persuaded, noting that "more evidentiary rigour is required" and pointing to what appeared to be "deficient electronic record keeping."
On material change in risk - specifically the switch from NB Power to generator power - the court found that a key affidavit filed by Sonnet contained factual inaccuracies and that there was no evidence Trecartin understood the change to be material, as required under New Brunswick law.
The court also declined to award Sonnet any costs despite its win, citing repeated procedural missteps by its counsel, including missed filing deadlines and last-minute filings made without court approval.
For carriers building their operations around digital platforms, the message here is plain: if you cannot retrieve and produce the original application, you may not be able to lean on it when it matters most.
