Court overturns insurer's "end run" that stripped claimant of accident benefits
A catastrophically impaired man had his accident benefits cut off while two insurers argued over who should pay. The court was not impressed.
In a decision released March 31, 2026, the Ontario Divisional Court reversed a Licence Appeal Tribunal ruling that had stripped Mahmoud Abu-Ain of his statutory accident benefits — finding that the process used to reach that result amounted to an abuse of process that undermined the foundations of Ontario's accident benefits system.
Abu-Ain was 20 years old on August 2, 2021, when he was riding as a passenger on Highway 401. The driver lost control, the car rolled and struck the guardrail, and Abu-Ain was left with very significant injuries. He did not own a car and had no car insurance of his own. Months later, he applied for accident benefits through his aunt's policy with Security National Insurance Company, claiming he was financially dependent on his aunt and uncle.
Security National accepted the claim, started paying benefits, and on June 7, 2022, found that Abu-Ain met the criteria of catastrophic impairment. Over the next few years, the insurer paid well over $400,000 in statutory accident benefits. At the same time, Security National launched a priority dispute with the Motor Vehicle Accident Insurance Fund — the publicly funded payor of last resort — arguing that the Fund, not Security National, should be on the hook.
That priority dispute was still unresolved when, in January 2024, Security National denied some of Abu-Ain's benefit claims. Abu-Ain took the matter to the LAT. But instead of proceeding to a hearing on the merits, Security National asked the Tribunal to first decide a preliminary question: whether Abu-Ain even qualified as an "insured person" under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule. The answer to that question hinged on dependency — the very same issue being fought over in the priority arbitration.
Abu-Ain objected. He asked for the hearing to be paused until the priority dispute was settled. The LAT refused, ruled he was not an insured person, and dismissed his entire claim.
The Divisional Court, in reasons written by Justice Brownstone with Justices Leitch and Sachs concurring, found that the LAT got it wrong. The court pointed to the "dispute between insurers" regulation, which requires the first insurer to receive a completed application to keep paying benefits while any priority dispute is sorted out. That principle — pay now, dispute later — is designed to make sure injured people are never left empty-handed while insurers figure out responsibility among themselves.
By allowing Security National to litigate dependency at the LAT while the same question was pending in arbitration, the Tribunal effectively let the insurer sidestep that obligation. The court called it an "end run" around the priority dispute process, one that was "manifestly unfair" to Abu-Ain and that brought "the entire administration of the statutory accident benefits regime into disrepute."
The LAT's decision was overturned. The court sent the matter back for a hearing on Abu-Ain's benefits with the proper responding party. During the appeal, the court was told the Fund had since accepted priority but had not yet contacted Abu-Ain about his ongoing benefits. Security National was ordered to pay $2,500 in costs.
