Caregiver & Housekeeping Benefits: Who Needs Them Most?

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Caregiver and housekeeping benefits pay for the work an injured person can no longer do at home: caring for a child or an aging parent, and running the house. Since July 1, 2026 both are optional on Ontario auto policies — and, in the same reform, both got broader. The old standard version paid only after a catastrophic impairment; the new legislated standard applies to all impairments. The people who need them most are the ones whose household would have to hire that work out tomorrow: primary caregivers, single parents, and anyone who lives alone.

They are separate benefits that answer the same question — who does the unpaid work if the person who did it is hurt?

The caregiver benefit covers reasonable and necessary expenses incurred in caring for a person who needs care because the injured person can no longer provide it. Ontario's regulator lists the schedule's amounts as up to $250 per week for the first person in need of care plus $50 per week for each additional person. It is written for the household's primary caregiver — the parent at home with young children, the adult caring for a parent — and the schedule treats it as an alternative to income replacement and the non-earner benefit, elected one at a time on the OCF-10 claim form.

The housekeeping and home maintenance benefit covers the cost of help with the housekeeping and home maintenance tasks the injured person normally did before the accident. The regulator lists it at up to $100 per week. It is not an alternative to the weekly benefits; it sits alongside whichever one applies. For the system both belong to, see what statutory accident benefits are.

Two things changed at once, and they pull in opposite directions.

First, both benefits became optional. Ontario Regulation 383/24 amended the schedule so that, for policies entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2026, only medical, rehabilitation and attendant care remain mandatory; everything else must be offered as an option, and the new section 4.1 names the caregiver benefit specifically.

Second, the standard version got broader. Before the reform, the caregiver and housekeeping benefits in a standard policy applied only where the injury was a catastrophic impairment; extending them to all injuries was an optional buy-up. FSRA's guidance to insurers describes the position after July 1, 2026 as "all impairments" being the legislated standard, with a "catastrophic impairment only" version available as a buy-down that an insurer may offer on new business if it has been filed and approved. The definitions of impairment and catastrophic impairment did not change.

So the benefit you can now buy is more useful than the one you used to get automatically — and you have to choose it.

Renewing customers who had these benefits have three choices, in the regulator's words: keep the same level of coverage; choose the new standard coverage that applies to all impairments; or decline the caregiver or housekeeping coverage entirely. Nothing is removed unless you and your insurer agree in writing to decline or change it.

New policies work the other way. For new business quoted on or after July 1, 2026, insurers are required to offer the legislated all-impairment standard, and if a quote defaults to a single option, that default has to be the all-impairment version. But a new policy carries these benefits only if they are actively added; the mandatory minimum does not include them.

Both benefits now apply only to the named insured, their spouse, the dependants of either, and the drivers listed on the policy. A primary caregiver who regularly drives the family car but is not listed is outside the group — the first thing to check.

Ranked by how hard the loss of the work would land.

• The household's primary caregiver with no fallback. A parent at home with young children, or the adult caring for an aging parent in the house. If they are injured, the care still has to happen, and someone has to be paid to provide it. The caregiver benefit is written for exactly this person — and because it is an alternative to income replacement, a caregiver without employment income is not giving anything up by electing it.
• Single parents. There is no second adult to absorb the work. Caregiver and housekeeping together are the two benefits that most directly keep a single-parent household running through a recovery.
• People who live alone. No one else is going to do the laundry, cook or clear the walk. Housekeeping and home maintenance is the benefit that pays for that help.
• Homeowners with physical upkeep. Lawns, snow, gutters, repairs. Renters in an apartment have less home maintenance to replace; a detached house has a lot.
• Dual-income households where care is already outsourced. Here the benefit matters less for the care itself and more for the extra hours of paid care an injury would require — and the separate, optional dependant care benefit, which covers additional expenses of caring for dependants, is the one to ask about alongside it.

• A household where the injured person's care work would be absorbed by a spouse or an adult child without hiring anyone, and where that is realistic for two years, not two weeks.
• Someone who would elect income replacement in any case and has confirmed the household could pay for care out of that benefit — remembering the election is one of the three, not all of them.
• A renter living alone with few home-maintenance tasks who is comfortable paying for occasional housekeeping help from savings.

Each coverage has its own premium, and FSRA expects that premium to be shown clearly on a quote. Ask for the two numbers and set them against the cost of hiring the work out for a season.

• Does this policy carry the caregiver benefit and the housekeeping benefit today, and at the old catastrophic-only standard or the new all-impairment standard?
• Who in this household provides the care, and are they listed on the policy or a spouse or dependant under it?
• If that person could not do the work for six months, what would it cost to replace it?
• What does each of the two coverages cost, shown separately?
• Would the separate dependant care benefit be a better fit for this household's situation?

For the whole optional-benefits decision as a set of questions, see the self-assessment checklist.

TopRates.ca is educational. Quotes are not offered or arranged on this site today.