An Ontario tribunal has told CAA Insurance it cannot dip into a claimant's vacation property income to shrink a rehabilitation housing benefit.
In a decision released April 14, 2026, Adjudicator Melanie Malach of the Licence Appeal Tribunal ruled that only rental income from a claimant's pre-accident main residence can be deducted when calculating a housing benefit under section 16 of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.
The case, Seinen v. CAA Insurance Company, 2026 ONLAT 24-013760/AABS, centered on Fenny Seinen, who was injured in an automobile accident on May 14, 2022. At the time, she owned two condominiums - a two-bedroom unit in Thunder Bay where she lived most of the year, and a one-bedroom unit in Toronto she used for vacations. She happened to be staying at the Toronto property when the accident occurred.
Her surgeon advised her to remain in Toronto for outpatient treatment. Unable to return to Thunder Bay for the foreseeable future, she began renting out her main residence. But the one-bedroom vacation unit proved too small for her post-accident needs, and her treatment team recommended she move into a larger, accessible two-bedroom rental in Toronto. She did so in August 2023, and started renting out the vacation property as well.
FunctionAbility, her rehabilitation provider, submitted two treatment plans seeking coverage for the accessible unit - $43,398.64 (August 8, 2023) and $44,590.57 (August 27, 2024). Neither side disputed that Seinen needed the larger, accessible space. The only question was math: how should the rental differential be calculated?
CAA argued that income from both rented properties should be deducted, which would have wiped out the housing benefit entirely. Seinen countered that only the main residence income was relevant.
The Tribunal agreed with Seinen. Adjudicator Malach found that section 16 of the Schedule focuses on the insured's primary home and does not contemplate multiple properties. She drew a pointed comparison: unlike vehicle replacement benefits, which contain explicit instructions for deducting pre-existing assets, the housing provisions include no such mechanism for secondary properties.
The reasoning carried a warning for the industry. Allowing insurers to sweep in vacation property rental income, Malach wrote, could let them reduce or eliminate housing benefits for any claimant who happens to own more than one property - an outcome she found at odds with the consumer protection principles set out by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Tomec v. Economical Mutual Insurance Co., 2019 ONCA 882.
Seinen was awarded a housing benefit of $1,972.05 per month, with arrears totaling $41,413.05 going back to October 2023, plus interest. Her separate claim for $3,763.70 in painting expenses - costs she incurred preparing the Thunder Bay unit for tenants - was denied, as was her request for an award for unreasonable withholding of benefits.
For claims professionals, the takeaway is straightforward: when a claimant owns multiple properties, the rental differential calculation may be limited to the primary residence. Reaching further could invite pushback - and the argument that the insurer, not the claimant, is the one chasing a windfall.
