“After-the-Event” Litigation Insurance for Personal Injury Litigation

When: Wednesday, October 21, 2026 at 12:00 PM -12:30 PM

Where: Virtual - Zoom

Contingency fees remove one barrier to the courthouse door. They do not remove the other: the risk that an unsuccessful plaintiff will be ordered to pay the defendant’s costs.  Adverse costs insurance – “after-the-event” or ATE coverage – has emerged over the past decade and more as the plaintiff bar’s answer to that risk, and it is now a routine feature of personal injury litigation in Ontario.  Increasingly, it is also a feature of the litigation itself.

This 30-minute session offers a practical overview of ATE insurance for plaintiff and defence counsel alike. It begins with what these policies typically insure – adverse costs awards, disbursements, expert reports and mediation expenses – and how policy limits, non-recourse premiums and policy wording determine what a client actually receives when a case goes badly. It then turns to the two questions that have generated most of the case law: whether the existence and terms of a policy must be disclosed and produced to the defence under Rules 30.02(3) and 31.06(4) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, considered in such recent decisions such as Snagg v. Makhoul; and whether the premium is recoverable as a disbursement, where trial-level authority remains divided and the Court of Appeal has yet to speak. The session closes with practical points on proportionality in smaller and Simplified Procedure claims, the choice of policy limit, and the conversation counsel should have with clients at the outset of the retainer.

PRESENTER

Graham Bennett Partner at Lerners LLP Graham Bennett is a partner at Lerners LLP in Kitchener and a Certified Specialist in Civil Litigation. His practice is focused on plaintiff-side personal injury and motor vehicle accident litigation and related Ontario insurance law. He can be reached at 226.444.4414 or gbennett@lerners.ca.

CPD

This program contains 25 Professionalism minutes.

REGISTRATION

• Members - Free
• Non-Members - $50.00 (includes HST)

Registration required to receive Zoom link.