Your insurer decides fault for insurance purposes by applying a regulation to the shape of the collision, not by weighing whose story is more convincing. A court decides fault for a lawsuit by a different test, on evidence, and can reach a different answer. Understanding how fault is decided after a car accident means keeping those two decisions apart, because people lose claims by assuming the first one settled the second.
Your Adjuster Applies a Regulation, Not a Judgment
Every Atlantic province directs automobile insurers to assign fault using fault determination rules made under the Insurance Act. New Brunswick’s are set out in the fault determination regulation.
The rules work from diagrams. A rear end collision, a left turn across traffic, a lane change, a collision at a stop sign and a parking lot impact each have a rule that fixes the percentage of fault by the position and direction of the vehicles.
The adjuster is not permitted to depart from the rules because the other driver was rude or because the road was icy. Weather, visibility and road conditions do not change the outcome under the rules.
The Rules Are Applied Whether or Not the Other Driver Is Insured
Fault is assessed on your own file regardless of what the other insurer decides. Two insurers applying the same rules to the same collision normally reach the same answer, which is the point of having rules.
Where they do not, insurers use an internal arbitration process between themselves. You are not a party to it and you are not bound by it.
How Fault Is Decided After a Car Accident Is Not How a Court Decides It
A tort claim for your injuries is decided on negligence. The question is whether each driver met the standard of a reasonable driver in the circumstances, and the circumstances include weather, speed, distraction, mechanical failure and the conduct of everyone involved.
Evidence a court hears includes witnesses, photographs, video, the vehicles’ event data and expert reconstruction. None of that features in the adjuster’s application of the rules.
So a driver held 100 percent at fault by an insurer can be found partly not at fault by a court, and the reverse happens too. The insurance decision affects your premium and your property damage. It does not decide your injury claim.
A Traffic Ticket Is Evidence, and It Is Not the Answer
A charge under the Motor Vehicle Act is laid by an officer on the officer’s assessment at the scene. A conviction is proof that the offence occurred, and it is persuasive, but negligence is a separate question with a different standard of proof.
Drivers plead guilty to tickets to avoid a court date all the time. That plea can be raised against you in a civil claim, so speak to a lawyer before you pay a ticket that arose from a collision in which anyone was hurt.
The reverse also holds. The other driver being acquitted, or never charged, does not mean they were driving reasonably.
Fault Is Frequently Split Between Drivers
Neither the rules nor the common law require one driver to carry everything. The rules assign percentages, and courts apportion under each province’s contributory negligence legislation.
A claim reduced by your share of fault is still a claim, and the arithmetic is set out in the post on being partially at fault. A finding that you were 25 percent responsible reduces your damages by a quarter. It does not end them.
How to Dispute a Fault Decision with Your Insurer
Ask for the decision in writing, and ask which rule was applied. That question changes the conversation, because the adjuster then has to identify the diagram they used.
Then look for a factual error in the inputs. Rules turn on facts like which vehicle was struck where, which direction each was travelling, and whether a vehicle was stopped or moving. If the file says you were changing lanes and you were not, the rule applied was the wrong one.
Send the correction with evidence: photographs, the police report, a witness statement, dashcam video. Ask for the file to be reassessed and ask for the internal complaint process if it is not.
Evidence That Changes Fault Findings
Independent video is the strongest. Security footage from a nearby business, another driver’s dashcam and municipal traffic cameras all record without an interest in the outcome, and they are overwritten within days, which is why finding witnesses after a car accident is urgent work.
Vehicle event data recorders show speed, braking and throttle in the seconds before impact. Damage patterns and debris fields support reconstruction. A neutral witness carries more weight than a passenger.
What a Fault Finding Does to Your Injury Claim
Nothing directly. Your Section B accident benefits are payable by your own insurer whatever the fault decision, and they are not reduced by your share of blame.
The claim against the other driver is what fault affects, and it is decided on negligence, not on the rules. Where an insurer’s early fault decision is wrong, the answer is evidence, gathered quickly, and a claim run on the correct test. The firm’s approach to that is set out at what we can do, and the car accident page covers how those files run.
FAQ
The Other Driver Admitted It at the Scene. Does That Settle Fault?
No. An admission is evidence and it is often withdrawn once an insurer is involved. Get it in writing or in front of a witness if you can, and do not rely on it alone.
My Insurer Says I Am 50 Percent at Fault and I Disagree. Can I Sue Anyway?
Yes. An insurer’s fault assessment does not bar a court claim, and a court is not bound by it.
Does Bad Weather Reduce My Share of the Blame?
Not under the fault determination rules, which ignore road and weather conditions. It can matter in a negligence claim, where the standard is what a reasonable driver would have done in those conditions.