Insurance company ordered to pay B.C. widow $400K in damages over denied claim

An insurance company that denied a B.C. widow's claim for accidental death benefits has been ordered by a judge to pay $400,000 in damages.

An insurance company that denied a B.C. widow's claim for accidental death benefits has been ordered by a judge to pay $400,000 in damages.

The decision in the case was handed down last week, but the woman's dispute with Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada over the claim dates back to 2018, according to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lindsay M. Lyster's ruling.

"The issue for determination is whether (the man) died as a direct result of an accident, and if so, was the death independent of any other cause," she wrote.

The woman's husband died in January of 2017 in what the court describes as "very sad circumstances" – he was found alone, in a freezing-cold, blood-covered apartment by police doing a welfare check. The officer who attended observed an injury to the man's face and "opined" that the man was drunk, fell and hit his head, and that the blood likely came from that wound. Criminality was ruled out.

An autopsy was ordered but never completed, the decision says, something the judge described as "inexplicable" in the circumstances.

"A post-mortem would likely have provided important evidence that would have borne directly on the cause of (the man's) death. In its absence, the court must do the best it can on the evidence available," Lyster wrote.

A medical examiner's report dated December 2017 – based on an external examination of the man's body – said the man died of natural causes.