What happened: A Nova Scotia court rejected a second proposed class representative, ending an attempt to certify a class action against 18 auto insurers
Who's involved: Eighteen Canadian auto insurers including Intact, Aviva, Allstate, Wawanesa, TD Home and Auto, and Co-operators
What's at stake: Whether insurers can deduct EI Disability Benefits from weekly accident benefit payments - affecting policyholders since 2007
Why it matters: The class action is dead and the contested deduction practice stands unchallenged across Nova Scotia's auto insurance market
Where it stands: Certification dismissed; costs submissions pending
She told the court she had reviewed everything - the pleadings, the certification decision, the litigation plan. Six weeks later, under cross-examination, the story came apart.
A proposed class action against 18 auto insurers in Nova Scotia is dead - not because of what happened on the merits, but because neither person put forward to lead it could pass muster. The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia dismissed the certification on October 30, after finding the replacement candidate gave "false evidence and other evidence that is, at best, unreliable" about her readiness to stand as the class representative - the person chosen to represent every affected policyholder.
The class action claimed that 18 insurers - including Intact Insurance, Aviva, Allstate, Wawanesa, TD Home and Auto, and Co-operators - had been deducting Employment Insurance Disability Benefits from weekly accident benefit payments in a way the policy did not allow. The proposed class covered policyholders going back to April 2007 whose weekly payments dropped below $250 because of those deductions.
The question at the heart of it: are EI Disability Benefits the kind of income-replacement payments that insurers are entitled to offset under Nova Scotia's Standard Automobile Policy? The plaintiffs said no.
In February 2026, the court said it would have been prepared to give the case the green light as a class action - and had even identified five shared questions ready for determination. But there was a problem. The original person put forward to represent the class had experienced a different kind of deduction. Hers involved long-term disability benefits, not EI. She did not fall within the class she was supposed to lead.
Class counsel got a month to find someone else. They proposed a new candidate whose insurer, Intact, had deducted EI Disability Benefits from her weekly payments - putting her squarely within the group.
In her June 25 affidavit, the replacement candidate swore she had reviewed the statement of claim, the certification decision, and the litigation plan. She was cross-examined on August 11.
She could not confirm she had read the current version of the claim. She confirmed she had not seen the litigation plan. Asked about it a second time, she said: "No, that's why I have a lawyer."
On the certification decision, her answers shifted. She first confirmed she had not read it, then said she may have read it in June, then said she could not recall, then circled back. When counsel pointed out her affidavit said "I have reviewed" - not "I perhaps reviewed" - she replied: "That's a whole stack of papers thrown at you at once."
She did not know the case included claims of bad faith and fraud. She did not know the court had already found those claims "manifestly incapable of being proven." She was unaware her own lawyers planned to appeal.
Class counsel argued the judge should not be weighing the credibility of witnesses at this stage, pointing to a Supreme Court of Canada decision. The court rejected the argument: that precedent dealt with the strength of the underlying lawsuit, not whether a class representative was fit to lead it.
The motion was dismissed. Two candidates put forward, two rejected. The certification died with them.
The court never reached the question the class action was built to test - whether Nova Scotia auto insurers can lawfully deduct EI Disability Benefits from weekly accident benefit payments. For claims teams processing those benefits across the province, the contested practice stands. But no court has confirmed it is correct, either.
The certification motion has been dismissed. No court has ruled on whether the alleged deduction practice breaches the Standard Automobile Policy or the duty of good faith.
