Category: Visitor Expenses

The claimant was involved in an accident and sustained various minor injuries. Approximately five months post-accident, the claimant’s immediate family members flew from the United Kingdom to visit. The cost of the return flight was GBP £2,650. The claimant submitted the expense to the insurer as an accident-related visitors expense, which was denied. The claimant applied to the LAT disputing the cost of the travel. Adjudicator Grant noted that the medical documentation presented during the hearing indicated the claimant suffered “minor injuries and that the claimant was discharged from the hospital with no need for support services. The claimant gave evidence at an examination under oath that he was able to perform all self-care tasks independently. Furthermore, the OCF-6 was not submitted until five months post-accident. While the claimant did give evidence that he received some assistance from family and friends in Canada, Adjudicator Grant concluded that there was no evidence indicating that the claimant required assistance from a total of five family members who flew from overseas to aid in his recovery, nor was there any evidence that his accident-related injuries were of the severity that his overseas family could provide any medical treatments required better than a local medical professional. The application was dismissed.

The claimant was in international student from China. She came to Canada in 2014 to attend school and was involved in a motor vehicle accident in 2017. She sustained injuries to her head, neck, arm, knee, shoulder, back and left side. She did not report the accident to the police or seek medical attention on the date of loss. The claimant stated that she moved in with her boyfriend post-accident because she was “unable to do anything”. In 2019, the claimant submitted two OCF-6s for $2,070.32 and $1,908.90 related to visitor’s expenses for her mother to visit from China, which were denied by the insurer. Vice Chair Marzinotto noted the conflicting evidence on file, including the claimant’s contradictory reports of the accident to the IE assessors. A review of the medical information on file was not supportive of the expenses being necessary as a result of the accident. In particular, Vice Chair Marzinotto noted a section 25 progress report from Dr. Pilowsky authored in 2019, after the claimant’s mother had visited, in which Dr. Pilowsky noted that the claimant was struggling to talk about the accident with her parents and had avoided telling them about it. The treatment records indicated that the claimant reported moderate pain and headaches. She was given a prescription for medication, but never filled it. Vice Chair Marzinotto held that the evidence showed that the visits by the claimant’s mother were not accident-related, especially considering that the mother was not even aware that an accident had occurred at the time of her two visits. Furthermore, the claimant did not provide a statement from her mother related to the reasons for her visits, or provide proof of payment for the airplane tickets. The application was dismissed.