Ontario's Injury Threshold: Why Some Car Accident Victims Get Nothing for Pain and Suffering

You can be hurt in a car crash in Ontario, prove the other driver was at fault, and still walk away with nothing for your pain and suffering. It sounds wrong, but it is the law. Two rules built into Ontario's auto insurance system, the injury threshold and the statutory deductible, quietly decide whether your pain and suffering is worth a full award, a reduced award, or zero.

Most people have never heard of either rule until a lawyer explains it, or until an insurer uses it to shut down a claim. The threshold is a legal gate. If your injury is not serious and permanent enough to pass through it, you cannot recover anything for pain and suffering, no matter how careless the other driver was. The deductible is a second hit. Even if you pass the gate, the law takes a fixed amount off the top of your pain and suffering award. For 2026 that fixed amount is $47,913.01, and it comes off before you see a dollar.

This guide explains both rules in plain language: what the threshold is, why it exists, the exact 2026 numbers, the legal test the courts use, the kinds of injuries that pass and fail, and, most important, what you can still claim even when the threshold blocks your pain and suffering. The rules come from the Insurance Act and its regulation on court proceedings for automobile accidents, O. Reg. 461/96, and the 2026 dollar figures come from the regulator, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.

This article is general information about Ontario law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. Every claim turns on its own facts and its own medical evidence. If you were hurt in a crash, do not try to guess whether you meet the threshold. Talk to a Toronto personal injury lawyer who can look at your injuries, your reports, and the numbers, and tell you where you stand.

What is the injury threshold in Ontario?

The injury threshold is a legal test that decides whether you are even allowed to recover money for pain and suffering after a car accident. It applies only to lawsuits arising out of the use or operation of an automobile. It comes from section 267.5 of the Insurance Act.

Ontario runs a partial no fault system. After a crash you have two separate tracks. One track is your own accident benefits, paid by your own insurer no matter who caused the crash. The other track is a lawsuit, called a tort claim, against the driver who hurt you. The threshold lives on the lawsuit track. It is the price Ontario drivers pay for a system that is supposed to keep minor claims out of court and keep premiums down.

Here is the core rule. Under section 267.5(5) of the Insurance Act, a person who is injured in a car accident cannot recover damages for pain and suffering, called non pecuniary damages, unless the injury meets one of two descriptions:

• The injured person has died, or
• The injured person has sustained permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental, or psychological function, or permanent serious disfigurement.

If your injury does not fit one of those descriptions, the threshold is not met, and the pain and suffering part of your claim fails. The judge dismisses it even if the jury wanted to award you money. That is why the threshold is sometimes called the "verbal threshold." It is a test written in words, not a dollar figure.

The threshold is easy to confuse with two other things, so let us be clear up front. It is not the same as the deductible, which is a dollar amount taken off an award that does pass the threshold. And it is not the same as the Minor Injury Guideline, which is a $3,500 cap on the accident benefits track. We deal with both of those below.

Why do some car accident victims get nothing for pain and suffering?

Because the threshold is a gate, and not everyone gets through it.

Imagine two people in the same intersection crash. One suffers a fractured spine with permanent nerve damage and can no longer work or lift her children. The other suffers a painful soft tissue strain that hurts for a year and then mostly resolves. Both were hit by the same careless driver. The first person clears the threshold and can claim pain and suffering. The second person may not, and if she does not, a court will award her zero for pain and suffering, even though her pain was real.

This is the part that shocks people. Fault is not the question. You can prove the other driver ran the red light, admit it, and get a jury that sympathizes with you, and still recover nothing for pain and suffering if a judge decides your impairment is not permanent, serious, and important. The threshold sits on top of the ordinary rules of negligence as an extra hurdle that exists only in Ontario auto cases.

The Legislature built the threshold on purpose. The idea was to reserve court awards for pain and suffering for people with lasting, significant injuries, and to divert smaller injuries to the no fault accident benefits system instead. Whether that trade off is fair is a fair debate. What matters for your claim is that the gate is real, insurers fight hard at it, and the medical evidence you build in the first two years often decides which side of the gate you land on.

What is the difference between the threshold and the deductible?

This is the single most misunderstood part of Ontario car accident law, so it is worth slowing down. The threshold and the deductible are two different rules that both cut into pain and suffering awards, but they work in completely different ways.

The threshold is a yes or no gate. Either your injury meets the "permanent serious impairment of an important function" test, or it does not. If it does not, you get nothing for pain and suffering.

The deductible is a subtraction. If you pass the threshold, the law then takes a fixed dollar amount off the top of your pain and suffering award. You do not lose everything. You lose the deductible amount.

Here is the same idea in a table.

So there are really two ways an injured person loses pain and suffering money in Ontario. First, you can fail the threshold and get nothing. Second, you can pass the threshold, win an award, and then watch the deductible eat a large piece of it. Understanding both is the difference between a realistic expectation and an unpleasant surprise.

What is the 2026 deductible, and how much is it?

The deductible is indexed every year, so the number climbs with inflation. The regulator publishes the figures each January. For accidents and awards in 2026, the FSRA indexation guidance sets the amounts below, using a 2.4 percent increase over 2025.

Read that first row carefully, because it is the one that surprises people. In 2026, the first $47,913.01 of your pain and suffering award is simply removed. If a jury decides your pain and suffering is worth $47,913 or less, you receive nothing, because the deductible swallows the whole award. If a jury values it at $60,000, you receive about $12,087.

The bottom two rows deal with family members. When a spouse, child, parent, or other close relative brings their own claim for the loss of your care, guidance, and companionship under the Family Law Act, that claim has its own smaller deductible, $23,956.52 in 2026, with its own vanishing point at $79,853.70.

These numbers change on the first of January every year. Always confirm the figure for the year of the award, not the year of the crash, because the deductible that applies is the one in force when damages are assessed.

How does the deductible disappear? The cliff at $159,708.71

Here is the strange and powerful part of the rule. The deductible does not apply to every award. Once your pain and suffering award crosses the threshold amount, $159,708.71 in 2026, the deductible vanishes entirely and you keep the full award.

That creates a cliff. Two very similar injuries, valued a few dollars apart, can produce payouts that differ by nearly $48,000. Watch what happens around the line.

Look at the last two rows. The jury values are only $20 apart. The payouts are almost $48,000 apart. That is not a rounding error. It is the deductible turning off the moment the award clears $159,708.71.

This cliff is why the exact size of a pain and suffering award matters so much in Ontario, and why experienced counsel fight over every factor that pushes an award up toward or over the line. A few thousand dollars of extra value near the threshold can be worth tens of thousands in your pocket. It is also why an early, low settlement offer can be far worse than it looks. An offer that sits below the deductible line is worth much less than the same number sitting above it.

A short history: why the deductible keeps climbing

Ontario did not always have a deductible this large, and understanding how it grew tells you where it is going. The verbal threshold and a deductible on pain and suffering were introduced in the 1990s as part of a push to keep smaller auto claims out of court and to hold down premiums. Under the major reforms in 2003, the deductible on a person's own pain and suffering award was set at $30,000, the family member deductible at $15,000, and a threshold was set at $100,000, above which the deductible fell away.

For more than a decade those numbers sat frozen. A $30,000 deductible in 2003 slowly shrank in real terms as inflation eroded it. Then, starting in 2015, the government began indexing the figures to inflation every January 1. Since then the numbers have only moved in one direction, and they have moved every year.

That is why the 2026 personal deductible is $47,913.01 rather than the old $30,000, and why the amount you need to clear to escape the deductible has climbed to $159,708.71. The 2.4 percent increase for 2026 is a typical annual step. The practical lesson is that the cliff keeps moving. An award that comfortably cleared the deductible line a few years ago might sit below today's higher line, and the target you have to hit to keep a full pain and suffering award rises a little every year. When you read older cases or older settlement stories, remember that the numbers in them are almost certainly lower than the numbers that will apply to you.

What is the legal test for the threshold?

For more than thirty years, Ontario courts have used the framework from the Court of Appeal decision in Meyer v. Bright, 1993 CanLII 3389 (ON CA). That case, decided with two companion appeals, set out the questions a judge must ask. The wording of the regulation has been refined since, but the structure still governs. A judge works through three questions.

Has the injured person sustained permanent impairment of a physical, mental, or psychological function?

The impairment must be permanent, not temporary. A soft tissue strain that heals in eighteen months is not permanent. A chronic pain condition that doctors expect to continue indefinitely can be. The impairment must also be of a bodily function, caused by a continuing injury that is physical in nature, or a psychological injury that is ongoing.

Is the function that is impaired an important one?

Not every function counts. The impaired function must be important to the specific person. Courts look at whether the function is necessary to perform the activities that are essential tasks of the person's regular employment, training, or daily living, and whether it is important to the person's usual activities of daily living. A pianist's hand and a labourer's back may be important in ways a desk worker's would not be. The test is personal to you.

Is the impairment serious?

Even a permanent impairment of an important function must also be serious. Under the criteria in O. Reg. 461/96, an impairment is serious if it substantially interferes with the person's ability to continue their regular or usual employment, despite reasonable efforts to accommodate and despite reasonable use of treatment, or if it substantially interferes with most of the usual activities of daily living, considering the person's age.

Only if the answer to all three questions is yes does the injury clear the threshold. Death and permanent serious disfigurement are the two other routes through the gate, and disfigurement, such as significant permanent scarring, is judged on its own terms.

What counts as a permanent serious impairment of an important function?

The regulation, O. Reg. 461/96, spells out the criteria the courts apply, and it also requires specific medical evidence. To meet the threshold, the injured person generally must show, through the evidence of a physician, that the impairment is permanent, that it is continuous since the incident, and that it is expected to continue without substantial improvement. The regulation expects a physician's evidence that is based on medical, and where appropriate psychological, findings.

In plain terms, the threshold is won or lost on medical evidence. You will usually need treating doctors and often specialists who can say, in writing and under oath, that your impairment is permanent, that it interferes substantially with your work or daily life, and that the function affected matters to you. A gap in treatment, a thin medical file, or a doctor who will not commit to permanence can sink an otherwise real claim. This is one of the strongest reasons to see your doctors consistently and to keep the paper trail complete from the first weeks after the crash.

Which injuries usually meet the threshold, and which usually do not?

There is no fixed list, because the test is about impact on you, not about a diagnosis alone. Two people with the same diagnosis can land on opposite sides of the gate. That said, patterns emerge from the case law.

Injuries that often meet the threshold include serious fractures that heal badly or leave lasting limitation, traumatic brain injury and post concussion syndrome with continuing cognitive symptoms, spinal cord injury, significant permanent scarring, chronic pain that is documented and disabling, and psychological injuries such as post traumatic stress or major depression that continue and interfere with work and daily life. What links them is permanence plus real, ongoing interference with important functions.

Injuries that often fail the threshold include soft tissue strains and sprains that resolve within a year or two, minor whiplash that settles, and aches that are genuine but do not substantially interfere with work or the usual activities of daily living once treatment has run its course. The problem is rarely that the pain was not real. The problem is proving permanence and serious interference.

The hard cases sit in the middle: chronic soft tissue pain, ongoing headaches, and mood symptoms that are difficult to measure. Those cases turn almost entirely on the quality and consistency of the medical evidence, which is why the work you and your lawyer do in the first two years matters so much.

A real example: when the court says no

The threshold is not theoretical. Courts dismiss the pain and suffering part of real claims when the evidence falls short.

In Ingratta v. McDonald, 2024 ONSC 371, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice heard a threshold motion after a car accident trial. The court worked through the Meyer v. Bright framework and the O. Reg. 461/96 criteria. It accepted that the plaintiff had an impairment and that the function affected was important, but it was not satisfied that the impairment was both permanent and serious to the level the law requires. The result was that the plaintiff did not meet the threshold, and the claim for pain and suffering was dismissed.

That is the threshold doing exactly what it is designed to do. A person who was injured, who went to trial, still recovered nothing for pain and suffering because the evidence did not clear all three parts of the test. It is a sobering illustration of why the medical proof, not just the fact of injury, decides these cases.

Illustrative examples: who passes and who fails

The following are illustrations only. They are not real clients, and they are not predictions about any particular case. They are here to show how the same three questions play out with different injuries.

A delivery driver with a herniated disc (likely passes). A courier is rear ended and suffers a herniated disc with nerve pain that radiates down one leg. Two years later she still cannot sit or drive for more than short stretches, her surgeon expects the condition to be permanent, and she has had to leave a job that required driving all day. The function affected, the ability to sit, stand, and drive, is important to her work and daily life, the impairment is permanent, and the interference is serious. This is the kind of case that clears the threshold, and if the pain and suffering value is built properly it may clear the deductible cliff as well.

An office worker with a neck strain that resolves (likely fails). A salaried analyst suffers a painful neck and back strain. It genuinely hurts for about fourteen months, then largely resolves with physiotherapy, and he returns to full duties with no lasting restriction. The pain was real and the treatment was necessary. But because the impairment is not permanent and does not seriously interfere with his work or daily life once it settles, a court may well find the threshold is not met, and the pain and suffering claim can be dismissed.

A part time worker with chronic pain and depression (borderline). A parent working part time is in a moderate crash and develops chronic pain plus depression. She keeps working, but with difficulty, on reduced hours, and with tasks at home now done by others. The medical evidence is mixed. This is the classic borderline case. Whether it clears the threshold turns almost entirely on the strength and consistency of the medical evidence, especially whether treating specialists will state that the impairments are permanent and that they seriously interfere with her important functions.

Permanent facial scarring (the disfigurement route). A passenger's face is cut by broken glass and left with permanent, visible scarring. Even without a functional limitation, the "permanent serious disfigurement" branch of the threshold may be met, because significant permanent scarring is judged on its own, separate from impairment of function.

What claims are not affected by the threshold?

This is the most important reassurance in this guide, so read it carefully. The threshold applies to pain and suffering, and to certain health care expense claims in the lawsuit. It does not wipe out the rest of your case.

Even if you do not meet the threshold for pain and suffering, you may still be able to recover other losses, which are handled under different rules. These commonly include:

• Loss of income, both what you have already lost and your reduced ability to earn in the future.
• The cost of future care and treatment that your injuries will require.
• Out of pocket expenses connected to the crash.

And separately from the lawsuit entirely, your own accident benefits are not subject to the tort threshold at all. Accident benefits are the no fault coverage from your own insurer. They can pay for medical and rehabilitation treatment, attendant care, and, depending on the coverage in place, income replacement, regardless of whether you ever clear the threshold. For accidents on or after July 1, 2026, some of those benefits became optional, so what you have depends on the policy. Our guide to Ontario's 2026 accident benefits changes explains that shift.

So failing the threshold is a serious blow to one part of a claim. It is not the end of the claim. A good lawyer builds the file so that even a difficult threshold case still captures income loss and future care.

Does the threshold apply to every crash?

The threshold applies to every lawsuit for injuries arising out of the use or operation of an automobile. That is broad. It covers drivers and passengers, and it covers motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians who are struck by a vehicle and then sue the at fault motorist. If a motor vehicle was involved and you are suing the person who was driving it, the threshold is in play.

What the threshold does not touch are injury claims that have nothing to do with a car. A slip and fall on an icy walkway, a dog bite, an injury from a defective product, these follow ordinary negligence rules, with no verbal threshold and no statutory deductible. That produces a strange result that surprises many people. The same broken ankle can be worth very different amounts depending on how it happened. Trip on ice in a parking lot and there is no threshold and no deductible. Get struck by a car in that same lot and both apply. It is one more reason that how an injury happened, not just how bad it is, drives the value of a claim in Ontario.

One point that catches passengers off guard: if you were a passenger and you sue the driver of the car you were riding in, you still face the threshold, because that is still an automobile claim.

Psychological injuries, chronic pain, and the threshold

The threshold is not only about broken bones and things that show up on an x-ray. The law expressly includes permanent serious impairment of an important psychological function. Chronic pain conditions, post traumatic stress, and major depression can all meet the threshold when they are permanent and seriously interfere with a person's work or daily life. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that chronic pain is real and disabling even when there is no visible injury behind it.

The difficulty with these injuries is not whether they count. It is proof. Invisible injuries leave no obvious mark, so the medical record, consistent treatment, and credible specialist opinions carry even more weight. Insurers often argue that pain with no objective finding is exaggerated or temporary, so the paper trail you build with your doctors becomes the case. If your injuries are psychological or pain based, our guides on concussion claims and chronic pain claims go deeper on how these injuries are proven.

Threshold or Minor Injury Guideline? Clearing up the confusion

People constantly mix up the threshold with the Minor Injury Guideline, and insurers are not always quick to correct them. They are two different rules on two different tracks.

The Minor Injury Guideline caps accident benefits treatment funding at $3,500 for injuries classed as minor, such as sprains, strains, and minor whiplash. Escaping that $3,500 cap is a fight you have with your own insurer on the benefits track. The threshold is a completely separate fight you have with the at fault driver's insurer on the lawsuit track. You can be inside the $3,500 guideline and still, in theory, have a threshold argument, or vice versa. If someone tells you the two are the same thing, they are wrong.

When is the threshold decided in a lawsuit?

Usually at the very end, and usually by the judge, not the jury.

Ontario car accident cases are often tried in front of a jury. But the jury is generally not told about the threshold or the deductible. The jury hears the evidence and returns a number for pain and suffering as if those rules did not exist. Then, after the verdict, the defence typically brings a threshold motion, and the trial judge decides whether the injury meets the legal test. If the judge finds the threshold is not met, the jury's pain and suffering number is set aside and the plaintiff recovers nothing for that head of damages. If the threshold is met, the judge then applies the deductible to the jury's number.

Keeping the threshold and deductible away from the jury is deliberate. The concern is that if jurors knew a large deductible would be subtracted, they might inflate their award to make up for it. So the system asks the jury for a clean number and then applies the legal rules afterward. For you, it means two things. The real fight over your pain and suffering often happens after the verdict, in legal argument. And the jury's number is not what you take home; the deductible and the threshold ruling shape the final figure.

How the threshold and the deductible affect settlement

Almost every Ontario car accident case settles before a threshold motion is ever argued. But the threshold and the deductible shape every settlement, because both sides are negotiating in the shadow of what a court would do. A Toronto car accident lawyer can review how both rules apply to your claim.

If your injuries clearly clear the threshold and your pain and suffering value sits well above $159,708.71, the deductible falls away and your negotiating position is strong. If your case is a borderline threshold case, the defence will discount its offer to reflect the real chance that a judge dismisses the pain and suffering claim entirely. And if your likely award sits just below the deductible line, the deductible can quietly erase most of the pain and suffering value, which is exactly why a quick early offer can be a trap. A number that looks acceptable can be worth far less once the deductible comes off.

Here is a worked example. Suppose your pain and suffering is realistically worth about $150,000, which in 2026 sits just below the cliff of $159,708.71. After the $47,913.01 deductible, you keep about $102,087. Now suppose your lawyer can build the medical case to move the value over $159,708.71. The deductible disappears, and the same head of damages is worth roughly $160,000 in your hands. That is close to a $58,000 swing on an injury whose real world severity barely changed. The work of pushing an award from just under the line to just over it is not a technicality. It is often the most valuable thing that happens in the file.

Costs make the stakes higher still. Under the rules of court, a plaintiff who makes a formal offer to settle and then beats it at trial can be entitled to elevated costs, while a plaintiff who fails to beat a defendant's formal offer can be ordered to pay the defendant's costs from the date of that offer. Because the deductible is applied after the jury gives its number, offers have to be built around the after deductible figure, not the headline number the jury might say out loud. Getting that math wrong can turn a courtroom win into a financial loss.

This is also where the interplay between the jury's number, the deductible, and each side's formal offers gets genuinely technical, and it is one of the clearest places where experienced counsel earns their keep. For more on how a payout is built and what shrinks it, see our guide on how much a car accident settlement is worth in Ontario.

The medical evidence a threshold case needs

The threshold is won or lost on medical evidence, so it is worth knowing what a strong file looks like. The regulation requires evidence from a physician, and it expects that evidence to speak to permanence and to real interference with function. In practice, the cases that clear the threshold tend to have most of the following.

• Continuous treatment records. A family doctor file that shows you kept reporting the same problems over time is powerful, because it shows the impairment is continuing, not a brief flare that settled.
• Specialist opinions. Depending on the injury, a physiatrist, orthopaedic surgeon, neurologist, psychiatrist, or psychologist who will state, clearly, that the impairment is permanent and expected to continue without substantial improvement. A treating specialist who commits to permanence is often the difference maker.
• Functional evidence. Proof that ties the impairment to important functions. An occupational therapist's assessment or a functional capacity evaluation can show, concretely, what you can no longer do at work and at home.
• Consistency. What you tell your family doctor, what you tell assessors, and how you actually live should line up. Inconsistencies are the first thing a defence expert looks for.
• A clear account of impact. Records that capture missed work, modified duties, tasks now done by family, and activities you have given up. The test is interference with function, so the file has to describe function, not just pain scores.

The single biggest, avoidable weakness in threshold cases is a gap in treatment. When a person stops seeing doctors for a stretch, the defence argues the injury must have resolved. If you stopped because of cost, a wait list, or because you were told nothing more could be done, that explanation belongs in the record.

Common insurer arguments at the threshold, and how they are answered

Insurers defend threshold cases with a familiar set of arguments. Knowing them helps you avoid handing the defence easy points.

• "This is a pre-existing condition." The defence points to an old back problem or a prior injury and says the crash changed nothing. The answer is that Ontario law compensates the aggravation of a pre-existing condition. If the crash made a manageable condition disabling, the question is the change the crash caused, not whether you were perfectly healthy before.
• "You went back to work, so you are fine." Returning to work is not a bar. Courts have accepted that a person can meet the threshold while still working, if they work in pain, on reduced hours, or with accommodation. What matters is whether the impairment seriously interferes, not whether you pushed yourself back to a desk.
• "There are gaps in your treatment." Gaps are explained, not fatal, when there is a reason, cost, wait lists, or medical advice that further treatment would not help. Silence in the record is what hurts.
• "Your complaints are subjective." Chronic pain and psychological injuries are recognized in law even without an objective finding. Consistent reporting and credible specialists carry these cases.
• "Our surveillance shows you active." Surveillance showing one good hour is not the test. A person can have a good day, or push through a task and pay for it later. Context matters, and surveillance must be disclosed to your side, not sprung by surprise.

None of these defence arguments is a knockout on its own. Each has an answer, and the answer is almost always built out of the medical record and the client's credibility, which is why the groundwork in the first two years is so important.

How do you protect a threshold claim?

You cannot change how badly you were hurt. You can change how well it is proven. The threshold is an evidence contest, and the evidence is built long before trial.

• See a doctor early and keep going. Consistent medical attention creates the record that shows an impairment is continuing and permanent. Gaps in treatment are the first thing a defence expert points to.
• Tell your doctors the truth about function, not just pain. The test is about interference with work and daily life. Describe what you can no longer do, at work and at home, so it lands in the records.
• Follow reasonable treatment. The regulation asks whether the impairment persists despite reasonable use of treatment. Declining care can be used against you.
• Keep proof of the impact. Notes about missed work, tasks others now do for you, and activities you have given up all help show serious interference.
• Get the right specialists involved. Threshold cases are often won on the strength of a treating specialist who will state, clearly, that the impairment is permanent and serious.
• Talk to a lawyer before you settle. Because of the deductible cliff, the difference between a fair settlement and a poor one can be tens of thousands of dollars, and it is not obvious from the headline number.

How VC Lawyers can help

The threshold and the deductible are where good Ontario car accident claims are quietly won or lost. At VC Lawyers, we build the medical and functional evidence that a threshold case needs, we value your pain and suffering with the deductible cliff in mind, and we push awards toward and past the line where the deductible disappears. We also make sure the parts of your claim that the threshold does not touch, your income loss and your future care, are fully captured.

We work on a contingency fee basis for personal injury clients, which means no fees unless we recover for you, and the first consultation is free. If you were hurt in a crash and someone has told you your claim is not worth pursuing, let us look at the numbers before you accept that. Contact VC Lawyers for a free consultation with a Toronto personal injury lawyer.

This article is general information about Ontario law. It is not legal advice, and it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. The threshold and deductible rules are technical, the dollar figures change every year, and the outcome of any claim depends on its own medical evidence and facts. For advice about your situation, speak with a lawyer.

Key terms explained

• Non pecuniary damages. Money for pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. This is the head of damages the threshold and deductible target.
• Pecuniary damages. Money for measurable financial losses, such as lost income and the cost of future care. These are handled under separate rules and are not blocked by the threshold.
• The threshold (verbal threshold). The legal gate in section 267.5(5) of the Insurance Act. You must have a permanent serious impairment of an important function, permanent serious disfigurement, or a death, to recover pain and suffering after a car accident.
• The deductible. A fixed amount, $47,913.01 in 2026, taken off a pain and suffering award that passes the threshold. It disappears once the award exceeds $159,708.71.
• Tort claim. The lawsuit against the at fault driver. The threshold lives here.
• Accident benefits. No fault benefits from your own insurer, paid regardless of fault. Not subject to the tort threshold.
• Family Law Act claim. A claim by a close family member for the loss of your care, guidance, and companionship, with its own smaller deductible of $23,956.52 in 2026.
• Minor Injury Guideline (MIG). A $3,500 cap on accident benefits treatment funding for minor injuries. A benefits rule, not the tort threshold.
• Threshold motion. The motion, usually brought after a jury verdict, in which the trial judge decides whether the injury meets the threshold.
• Indexation. The annual inflation adjustment that raises the deductible and threshold figures every January 1.