Tracy Lea Brooks

Two consolidated appeals concerning the standard of review applicable to insurance arbitral decisions resolving priority disputes under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS).

The first appeal involved a claimant listed as an excluded driver on his parents' policy who was injured as a passenger in another vehicle.

The second involved a claimant similarly listed as an excluded driver who was injured while driving an uninsured motorcycle.

The central issue was whether excluded drivers could qualify as "insured persons" under the SABS definition and thus trigger priority coverage under their parents' policies.

The Court of Appeal held that the appropriate standard of review for such arbitral decisions is reasonableness, not correctness, and that arbitrators' interpretations of the SABS and insurance policies within their specialized expertise warrant deference.

Matthew B, an excluded driver under his parents' Dominion policy, was injured while driving an uninsured motorcycle.

Belairdirect, insurer of the other vehicle, sought to establish priority for accident benefits.

An arbitrator found Matthew B to be an "insured person" under Dominion's policy but felt bound by a prior Superior Court decision (Dominion v. State Farm) to rule in favour of Belairdirect.

Belairdirect appealed.

The Superior Court, applying a reasonableness standard of review to the arbitrator's underlying analysis, found the arbitrator's initial conclusion that Matthew B was an "insured person" under the Dominion policy to be reasonable.

The court overturned the arbitrator's final decision, holding that Dominion has first priority to respond to Matthew B's accident benefits claim.

This is an appeal from an arbitration decision concerning a priority dispute between two insurers, Allstate and Intact, regarding statutory accident benefits for Ming Wu Yan.

The central issue was whether Yan was "principally dependent for financial support or care" on her daughter or son-in-law, which would make her an insured person under Allstate's policy.

The court upheld the arbitrator's finding that Yan was principally financially dependent, dismissing Allstate's appeal.

The court affirmed the arbitrator's decision not to impute monetary value to Yan's caregiving services and to exclude her foreign pension income, which was unavailable in Canada, from the dependency analysis.

The court also confirmed that the test for financial dependency requires a holistic "big picture" approach, not solely a mathematical calculation.