A claimant who dropped his attendant care benefit claim before the Ontario Licence Appeal Tribunal lost any shot at an award or interest.
The reconsideration decision in Shikh Mati v Definity Insurance Company, 2026 CanLII 53762 (ON LAT), released June 4, 2026, offers a clean lesson for insurers and claims professionals on what must be in play before the Tribunal can order an award or interest against an insurer.
The dispute stemmed from a January 26, 2024 accident. Toryalai Shikh Mati sought benefits under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, and the parties ran a written hearing. But in his initial submissions, he withdrew all the substantive benefits in dispute, including his request for an attendant care benefit. That left only two issues, his request for interest and an award, and the Tribunal found he was entitled to neither.
Definity had accepted the attendant care claim but concluded no payment was owing. It found the OCF-6 submissions did not sufficiently identify which services were provided, by whom, on which dates, and for how long, so it could not confirm the expense was incurred under the Schedule or calculate any economic-loss cap.
Shikh Mati asked for reconsideration, arguing the Tribunal erred in fact and law and that he had new evidence. He wanted the Tribunal to find Definity liable for the maximum award and interest on the attendant care benefit.
Vice-Chair Craig Mazerolle dismissed the request. His reasoning turned on a basic sequence. An award requires a foundation that benefits were payable and that the insurer's non-payment was unreasonable or delayed. Because Shikh Mati withdrew the attendant care benefit as an issue, the Tribunal had no dispute to assess and no jurisdiction to decide whether any payment was owing. Without a payment owing, there was no basis for an award under section 10, and "if there are no benefits owing, there can be no interest."
Mazerolle added that even if the applicant had shown the insurer acted unreasonably, it would not have changed the result, because he had not established that any attendant care payment was owing in the first place.
The applicant also leaned on Vivekanantham v. Certas Direct Insurance Company, 2024 ONSC 6198 (CanLII), which holds that an award can be addressed as a stand-alone issue. The Vice-Chair accepted the case is binding but found the facts were not analogous. In Vivekanantham, the insurer had found the applicant entitled to certain benefits before the hearing.
On the new-evidence ground, Shikh Mati filed attendant care invoices covering January 26, 2024 to May 25, 2025, with a final invoice signed August 3, 2025. Mazerolle accepted they were not before the original Tribunal but noted most predated his earlier submissions, that the onus to prove entitlement sat with the applicant, and that it was not the insurer's job to tell him what documents he needed.
The request for reconsideration was dismissed.
