The Personal Injury Protection Plan (PIPP) covers the expense of hiring someone to care for you when injuries sustained in an accident prevent you from caring for yourself. The level of coverage depends on the extent of your disability.
PIPP reimburses you, up to a monthly limit, for personal assistance expenses when:
- You can’t care for yourself. This includes things like bathing and eating.
- You can’t do all the essential tasks of daily life by yourself. This includes preparing meals, housekeeping and shopping.
This coverage is only available for personal needs and daily living tasks that you were doing yourself before the accident. To qualify for Personal Care Assistance, your need for assistance must reach a minimum level. Your case manager will arrange to have your needs assessed.
Coverage, up to a maximum amount, depends on how much assistance you need. You can hire whomever you want to help you. We will reimburse you once we have approved the expenses and you have provided a legible copy of a receipt with details about the service and the person who performed it. PIPP reimburses you based on your actual expenses for the care provided.
Usually, your ability to care for yourself and your daily needs will improve as you recover. We re-evaluate personal assistance needs at regular intervals.
Your need for assistance
Coverage depends on how many of your regular activities you’re now prevented from doing. These activities include:
- getting into and out of bed
- dressing and undressing
- eating
- washing
- using the toilet
- using facilities in your home and neighbourhood, such as the telephone, television and local library
- preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner and washing up afterwards
- light housekeeping such as vacuuming and dusting
- housekeeping such as washing floors and cleaning the fridge and stove
- doing laundry
- shopping for food, household supplies and other necessities
If someone else was doing a task for you before the accident, you’re not eligible for funding assistance for the task after the accident.
Payment of expenses
To calculate your maximum entitlement to Personal Care Assistance, we assess your personal care needs. The greater your needs are, the greater your entitlement is, up to the monthly maximum.
Your case manager will meet with you to talk about your need for Personal Care Assistance and the coverage available to you. We’ll also send you a letter stating the maximum amount we’ll reimburse you for personal care expenses each month. The full amount is only available to someone who is seriously disabled and was completely self-sufficient before the accident.
In the case of someone seriously injured, we can pay the person or company directly if requested to do so.
You choose who assists you
You can choose who helps you with personal care and daily living needs. You can pay family members, friends and neighbours to help you, or you can hire a professional.
We review all claims to make sure the expense is reasonable, the time required to perform the service is realistic and the amount paid for the service is within the normal range for similar services.
Keep in mind that you are the employer of the person or company who assists you. MPI is not responsible for their work in any way.