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Want to know what an accident benefit adjuster’s gotta do to properly handle your case car accident case? Check out the below Arbitration Appeal review of Delegate Lawrence Blackman of the Financial Services Commission on Ontario in Christopher Hoang v. The Personal Insurance Company of Canada.

Facts:

The Insured, Christropher Hoang was born on March 7, 1998. When he was just 6 years old, he was hit by a car. His right ankle was pinned under a wheel, and he lost consciousness. His Glascow Coma Scale reading was 3 out of 15; which is the lowest GCS score you can get while living. Think of being totally out of it on the ground, without responding to noise, movement, touch or any other sense. That was Mr. Hoang. He had to be resuscitated at the scene of the accident. He’s lucky to be alive.

Chris’ accident benefits were provided to him by The Personal Insurance Company. You, or a loved one might be insured by The Personal. Many clients at Goldfinger Law are insured by them. They’re a rather large insurer. You should know that The Personal is a subsidiary of Desjardins Insurance.
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What’s new in the world of Long Term Disability Law in Ontario? Well, I’m glad you’ve asked.

Not to sound like an insurance salesman, but have you even given any thought to what you would do if you found yourself in the terrible position of being so sick, or so injured that you can no longer work?

Canada Pension Plan Disability Benefits only cover so much. ODSP payments are also very limited. Your EI will expire after around 8 weeks or so. Cashing in RRSPs is a tough pill to swallow.

That’s were Short Term and Long Term Disability Insurance comes in. Critical Illness Insurance may also apply.

At our law firm, we see things when the bad stuff hits the fan so to say. When things go wrong recovering STD/LTD benefits, people call us. We see lots of crazy, and not so crazy stuff. The purpose of this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog post is to give you a better understanding of what Courts are saying with respect to handling these claims, along with the changes we are seeing on behalf of insurers in the industry. Some of the big names which provide LTD and STD insurance are Manulife, Great West Life, SunLife, Industrial Alliance, Desjardins, Canada Life, SSQ and Standard Life.
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How long do I have to sue for my personal injury case? How long can I wait? Can I afford to wait much longer? When should I retain a lawyer? When does time start to run after my accident? What happens if I’m under 18 and I’ve been involved in a car accident? What happens if I wait too long to sue?

These are all common questions which we receive at our law firm. It doesn’t matter if the caller is from Toronto, London, Peterborough or elsewhere in Ontario; all of these questions are valid and fair. Most people don’t understand much from the world of personal injury law and insurance law; let alone the complicated laws which have to deal with limtation periods.

In this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog post, I will do my very best to de-mystify some of the most common misconceptions when it comes to limitation periods and deadlines for accident claims in Ontario. After reading this post, if you still have some more questions about limitation periods, then call our office toll free at 1-877-730-1777 or shoot us an email to info@goldfingerlaw.com and we will do our very best to help you.
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This has been an interesting month at our offices. I can honestly say, that we’ve come across some very peculiar questions this past month at our Toronto, London and Peterborough offices. We do our very best to answer all of your questions, and I’d like to share some of those queries with you, our Toronto Injury Blog readership. NOTE: We’d like to thank our readership for your on-going support and words of encouragement. I’m always amazed by the amount of people who keep up with our blog and derive a benefit from it.

So, without further a due, here are some of the top questions we’ve heard at Goldfinger Injury Lawyers for the month of May:

1. HOW CAN I BECOME A CLIENT OF GOLDFINGER LAW?

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The calls keep rolling in to our law firm. I’m proud to say that I’m the lawyer who prospective clients will speak to. And, I can say based on all of my years of in-taking such calls that every body thinks they have an AMAZING case that’s worth like a million…no way…5 million…no way….100 million dollars.

Don’t get me wrong, multimillion dollar personal injury cases in Ontario do exist, but they are not the norm.

To put it into perspective, your standard Ontario car insurance policy has limits of $1,000,000. That means that if a drunk driver hits and injures you, there’s nothing stopping your lawyer from suing that drunk driver for $10,000,0000. But, if policy limits are just $1,000,000, your hopes of recovering that additional $9,000,000 are few and far between. Ever hear of trying to get blood from a stone? Same idea applies here.
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When you open a new bank account, often the bank will try to sell you on purchasing additional insurance. Sometimes, that insurance is complementary. Be careful.The same can be offered through your workplace. People think that their job comes with benefits. But when those policies and benefits are further examined, we quickly learn that those policies and benefits don’t cover everything you thought they did. The effect is that it creates false sense of security for policy holders that they are protected, when in fact, they aren’t.

I’ve had lots of people tell me that their employer or their credit card covers them for accident insurance. Then, while on a beautiful Carribbean vacation, they get in to a catastrophic car accident. You or a loved one might have broken some bones, or got pretty badly hurt. You figure that your medical bills will be taken care of. But, upon arrival at the hosptial, it turns out that your bills are NOT covered by insurance.
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There was a great piece on 60 Minutes last night featuring brain injured American soldiers returning from wars in the Middle East with problems such as depression, mood disorders, anxiety, memory loss, word finding difficulties, blurred vision, nausea etc. These were initially diagnosed as concussions, or simply not diagnosed at all. Soliders were called malingerers, liars and fakers! Much like insurance companies and their lawyers call accident victims. Eventually, doctors, through using scans more sophisticated then MRIs found that these soldiers were experiencing traumatic brain injury. The piece is called, “The Invisible Injury” and refers to traumatic and mild brain injury. My favourite part of the piece is when a soldier said that he’d rather lose a limb then experience a brain injury. Watch this piece and you will understand why, and understand why brain injury is so serious. They just don’t happen in battles. They can occur in slip and falls, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bike accidents and a variety of other ways which we here at Goldfinger Injury Lawyers see every day. I like it when the mainstream media shines some light on brain injury. Thanks to the NFL, NHL, and now injured soldiers, the severity of brain injury is getting some much needed attention. Continue reading →

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Every year around this time, Ontarians gather around the radio (old school) or TV and tune in the CTV, CBC, Global or CP24 to listen to the Premier or Minister of Finance go through the details of the provincial budget.

The government in power will make grandiose promises like cutting spending, while at the same time providing more in services. Other promises like slashing taxes, but at the same time collecting MORE tax dollars and making better use of those tax dollars. How about paying less in compensation but demanding more work of civil servants. Or attracting better talent but offering less in salary and benefits compared to other sectors. All of these promises is just a bunch of sucking and blowing. Ever trying sucking and blowing at the same time? Go ahead. Give it a try. Still haven’t found a person able to do it. If you’re that lucky person, please let me know.

At the end of the day, the Toronto Injury Law Blog always comes back to car accidents and personal injury claims. The budget usually has an impact on how personal injury cases run.
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Our law firm handles a wide variety of short term, and long term disabilty claims. The insurance companies we go up against in these cases are well known to our lawyers as we have dealt with them on countless occassions. Large, deep pocketed insurance companies such as Great West Life, Manulife, SunLife, Desjardins, SSQ, Standard Life, Industrial Alliance, Canada Life, RBC Insurance and BMO Insurance are some of the most common LTD and STD carriers we see.

Time and time again, we also observe people being taken advantage of by their insurance company. We want this to stop, and we want you to better understand what it takes to win a difficult LTD or STD action. That’s why this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post will be devoted exclusively to Long Term and Short Term Disabilty Claims. If after reading this blog post, you still have questions about these sort of claims, don’t hesitate to contact the offices of Goldfinger Injury Lawyers for your free consultation with one of our attorneys. Our offices are located in Toronto, London and Peterborough. If you can’t make it to one of our three offices, then we would be happy to meet with you at a place more convenient to you.
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On January 3, 2003 Leslie Brown was driving her car on RR#9 southwest of Napanee, Ontario. The road way icey. She lost control of her vehicle while travelleing down a hill, and then hit a loaded propane truck.

Ms. Brown sustained a traumatic brain injury. She has no recollection of the car accident on account of post traumatic amnesia. Her doctors have told her that she will never be able to return to her job again. She will require 24/7 attendant care for the rest of her life. Never mind caring for her children, she will need somebody to care for herself for the rest of her life.

Ms. Brown sued Lennox County and the Town of Napanee for failing to properly maintain their roads. She alleged that had the roadways been properly salted and sanded, that the car accident never would have happened. This is what we injury lawyers refer to as a Muncipial Liability case. These cases are always tricky as the standard to prove negligence against a Munipaility is much greater than then standard of proving negligence against a regular individual.
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