Limitation Period

A limitation period is the deadline for starting a lawsuit. In most Canadian provinces the basic period is 2 years — not from the incident, but from the day the claim was discovered, meaning the injured person knew or reasonably should have known they were harmed, who was responsible, and that suing was the appropriate response. Miss the deadline and the claim is generally dead; start inside it and the lawsuit can proceed years after the event. Details vary by province and by type of claim, so treat two-years-from-discovery as the common pattern, not a universal rule.

Why it matters to you#

The limitation period defines how long an incident can follow you — and it's longer than most people assume. Two years from discovery is not two years from the accident: an injury whose severity emerges slowly can start the clock late. More important for families: claims by minors are typically paused until the child reaches the age of majority, and the limitation period runs from there. A child hurt at your pool party at age 8 may have until their early twenties to sue. That backyard incident everyone shook off isn't legally over for more than a decade — and the insurance that answers a future claim is generally the policy in force when the incident happened, which is one more reason limits matter every single year.

I settled my claim months ago — can they still serve me now?#

Yes, and this is how most people actually meet this concept: not as a definition, but as a process server at the door long after the accident felt finished. A fender-bender gets the vehicle-damage claim settled within weeks. Life moves on. Then, 18 to 23 months later, a statement of claim arrives over the bodily injury — whiplash, a back problem, something that didn't seem serious at the time but was diagnosed or worsened later.

Nothing went wrong procedurally. The property-damage claim and the bodily-injury claim are legally separate, and the injury claim runs on its own 2-year discovery clock — often filed close to the deadline, because plaintiffs' lawyers routinely wait to see how an injury resolves before finalizing a claim's value. A claim served near the two-year mark isn't a red flag; it's the ordinary rhythm of how these files move. If you've just been served, what to do first is a different question than this one — start there.

In practice#

• A dinner guest slips on your stairs in 2026 and seems fine. Symptoms surface and are linked to the fall in 2027; the discovery clock may start then, putting a 2029 lawsuit in play.
• A 10-year-old is injured on your trampoline. In most provinces the limitation period doesn't begin until majority — a statement of claim could arrive around 2036.
• Provinces set their own rules and ultimate long-stop deadlines, so anyone facing a real claim deadline needs provincial legal advice, not a glossary.

You can't control when a claim surfaces. You can control how much coverage is standing there when it does. Take the 2-minute Lawsuit Exposure Quiz →