How to read your Ontario auto renewal letter after July 1, 2026

TopRates.ca is educational. Quotes are not offered or arranged on this site today. Nothing here is advice for your situation — it is the plain-English background to bring to a licensed insurance professional.

An Ontario auto renewal package after July 1, 2026 has one new job: it has to tell you that several accident benefits you used to get automatically are now optional, show you which ones your policy still carries, and give you a way to change them. Read it in four passes — the premium summary, the mandatory-versus-optional split, the OPCF 47R endorsement, and the questions to settle before you sign — and the package stops being a bill and starts being a decision.

A renewal arrives as a bundle: a renewal notice or offer with the new premium, a certificate of automobile insurance (sometimes called the declarations page) listing the vehicles, drivers, coverages, limits and deductibles, and the endorsements that change the standard policy wording. The policy wording itself is the Ontario Automobile Policy, the OAP 1, whose 2026 edition is approved for use on or after July 1, 2026 and which says plainly that the details of accident benefits coverage are set out in the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.

The regulator's expectation, as stated in the broker regulator's industry FAQ, is that the renewal package must indicate that certain coverages are now optional and that you can contact your agent or broker to make changes to the optional benefits in your policy. If your package does not say that anywhere, ask why.

The premium summary breaks the total into its parts: third-party liability, accident benefits, uninsured automobile, direct compensation for property damage, and whatever optional physical-damage coverages — collision, comprehensive — you carry, each with its limit or deductible and its premium. Read it against last year's. A change in the total is explained somewhere in those lines, and the line that moved is the line to ask about.

For accident benefits after July 1, 2026, the regulator expects the split to be visible. FSRA has told insurers that for new business it should be clear which coverages are optional on the quote or offer, that the premium for each optional coverage or bundle should be clear, and that each optional coverage should be briefly explained in plain language so the customer can assess whether they need it. A renewal that shows accident benefits as one undifferentiated line has not given you the information the decision needs; ask for each optional coverage priced separately.

Since July 1, 2026, only three accident benefits are mandatory in every Ontario policy: medical, rehabilitation and attendant care. Everything else in the schedule is offered as an option — a residual rule, not a short list. The optional group includes income replacement, the non-earner benefit, caregiver, housekeeping and home maintenance, death and funeral benefits, lost educational expenses, expenses of visitors and damage to personal items, along with the benefits that were already optional before the reform, such as dependant care, indexation and increased medical limits. The plain-language guide to statutory accident benefits explains each one.

Two defaults, and the renewal package is where you find out which one applies to you. A policy renewing on or after July 1, 2026 keeps the benefits it had, carried forward as optional coverage in the amounts previously payable, unless you and your insurer agree in writing to decline or change them. The regulator has said expiring policies must renew with the pre-July 2026 coverages and limits until the consumer agrees to changes in writing, and that there is no time limit on that.

A brand-new policy starts at the mandatory minimum. So if you are renewing, nothing has been taken away — the package should show every benefit you had, now labelled optional, with a price.

The optional benefits now apply only to the named insured, the spouse, the dependants of either, and the drivers listed on the policy. That makes the driver list on the certificate a coverage document, not an administrative one. Read the names.

The OPCF 47R is the endorsement form titled "Optional accident benefits coverage & priority of payment," form number AF-162, with a last update dated July 1, 2026. In the broker regulator's words, when optional accident benefits are purchased, insurers are required to issue an approved endorsement, FSRA has created the OPCF 47R for industry use, and the endorsement must be added to every renewing or newly issued policy where these benefits are purchased. In practice it is the paper that records which optional accident benefits were kept and which were declined.

So the 47R is where your optional-benefits decision is recorded. If your renewal carries optional accident benefits, look for it in the package and check that what it lists matches what you intended to keep. FSRA has told insurers it is a policy-level endorsement, and that for policies that started before July 1, 2026 the endorsement is added at renewal or when a mid-term change is made to optional benefits, rather than on July 1 itself. Its second job — the priority-of-payment part of the title — is the one FSRA describes when it says it expects insurers to ensure customers receive the level of coverage available to them under the policy for which they are eligible and under which they have elected to claim; the glossary entry on OPCF 47R covers that side, and how the form succeeds the earlier OPCF 47.

Do not sign a 47R, or any form declining coverage, without reading which benefits it removes. The regulator's own guidance is that customers must be able to decline higher-cost coverages regardless of how an insurer bundles them, and that offering each of the nine new optional coverages individually is the supported practice. If a form bundles several benefits into one yes-or-no, ask for them separately.

Two other items may appear. First, the first-payer change: for accidents on or after July 1, 2026, auto insurance pays first for medical and rehabilitation benefits, except medication, before a workplace or private health plan. That applies to every policy by accident date, whether or not you changed anything at renewal; the first-payer rule article explains what it means for your group benefits.

Second, direct compensation for property damage has had a documented opt-out since January 1, 2024, through the OPCF 49 endorsement, and signing that one also removes collision and other coverage for your own vehicle. If a 49 is in your package and you did not ask for it, ask.

• Which optional accident benefits does this renewal carry, and what does each one cost, shown separately?
• Is this policy renewing with my previous benefits, or has anything been declined or reduced — and if so, where did I agree to that in writing?
• Is every regular driver of this vehicle listed on the certificate?
• Does the OPCF 47R in this package match the benefits I intend to keep?
• Is there an OPCF 49 in this package, and did I ask for it?
• Which line of the premium summary moved since last year, and why?

Your broker or agent is the person to take these to; the broker regulator's own FAQ for licensees is built around exactly these renewal conversations. For a benefit-by-benefit way to decide, see the self-assessment checklist.

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