{"id":1000,"date":"2020-04-06T21:12:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T01:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1000"},"modified":"2020-04-28T21:10:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T01:10:04","slug":"ontario-make-coverage-denials-clear-and-unambiguous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1000","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: make coverage denials clear and unambiguous"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/j1xp0\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Clarke v. Sunlife <\/em><\/a>is a reminder that for a denial of coverage to commence a limitation period, it needs to be clear and unambiguous:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"MainParagraph\" data-viibes-end=\"21\" data-viibes-parag=\"23\" data-viibes-start=\"22\">[<a class=\"reflex-paragAnchor\" name=\"par23\"><\/a>23]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It is not clear that the words used by the Sun Life letter of February 24, 2014 was a denial of disability benefits that amounted to \u201cinjury, loss or damage.\u201d It used milder language than denial or refusal, and suggested that Ms. Clarke might \u201cfeel Totally Disabled from Any Occupation.\u201d It invited more information to support her feeling.\u00a0 However, it also said that her file was closed. This leads to an ambiguity, which leaves it unclear whether or not Ms. Clarke\u2019s loss had \u201cripened\u201d at this stage. However, assuming that Ms. Clarke\u2019s loss was sufficiently identifiable at this point, a second issue must be addressed, that is whether Ms. Clarke was aware at the time of the February 2014 letter that a proceeding would be the appropriate means to seek a remedy for that loss.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Update! <a href=\"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1037\" target=\"_blank\">The Court of Appeal overturned this decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clarke v. Sunlife is a reminder that for a denial of coverage to commence a limitation period, it needs to be clear and unambiguous: [23]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It is not clear that the words used by the Sun Life letter of February 24, 2014 was a denial of disability benefits that amounted to \u201cinjury, loss &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=1000\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ontario: make coverage denials clear and unambiguous<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[517,291,33],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-coverage","tag-denial-of-benefits","tag-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}