Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Mme Sadia Assad claimed an additional insurance indemnity of $3,600 plus unspecified punitive damages after her credit card insurer denied her involuntary job loss claim.
• Both applicable insurance certificates expressly excluded coverage for job loss arising from contractual or temporary employment.
• Dismissal constituted a separate, independently applicable exclusion under the involuntary job loss provisions of the policy.
• Enrollment in the higher-tier "protection-solde maximale" plan required a premium of $1.20 per $100 used — a plan to which Mme Assad had not subscribed.
• Her card replacement in 2023 could not provide coverage for a loss event — the dismissal — that had already occurred on September 16, 2022.
• Despite owing nothing further, the insurer had voluntarily paid Mme Assad $348.97, representing the full credit card balance at the time of her dismissal.

Facts of the case

In 2015, Mme Sadia Assad obtained a credit card from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), to which an insurance certificate was attached at a premium of $0.99 per $100 used on the card. On August 15, 2022, she began a new contractual, fixed-term position at the Cégep de La Pocatière — her first contract, with permanency attainable only after two completed years of work. She was dismissed on September 16, 2022. Sometime in 2023, the exact date not established at trial, Mme Assad replaced her original Visa card with an RBC Visa ION card. On February 15, 2024, she filed a claim for insurance benefits to cover the balance on her credit card.

The insurer, American Bankers Compagnie d'assurance générale, denied the claim on three separate occasions. The first denial, citing an exclusion for contractual employment, stated: "Nous ne pouvons pas payer la réclamation, car l'emploi contractuel constitue une exclusion de la couverture." The second and third denials reframed the basis, stating that her unemployment resulted from dismissal, which was not a covered event under the involuntary job loss insurance. Mme Assad disputed these interpretations and argued before the court that the higher-tier "protection-solde maximale" regime applied to her situation, entitling her to 25% of her account balance per month up to a maximum of $25,000.

Policy terms and contractual clauses at issue

Both the "protection-solde maximale" certificate and the "régime protection-solde première" contained identical exclusion clauses stating that no benefit would be paid in the event of job loss attributable to "la cessation d'un emploi temporaire ou contractuel" — the termination of temporary or contractual employment. The "protection-solde maximale" plan also required enrollment at a premium of $1.20 per $100 used on the card. The benefit clause in that certificate provided: "La prestation mensuelle sera égale à 25 % du solde de compte total, jusqu'à concurrence de 6 250 $ par mois" — meaning the monthly benefit would equal 25% of the total account balance, capped at $6,250 per month.

Court's reasoning and analysis

The court identified four separate obstacles to Mme Assad's claim. First, both insurance contracts expressly excluded coverage for job loss arising from contractual or temporary employment, and her dismissal constituted an additional, independently applicable exclusion. Second, Mme Assad had not subscribed to the "protection-solde maximale" plan and could not claim entitlement under it. Third, even if the higher-tier plan applied to her replacement Visa ION card, that card only came into effect in 2023 — after the September 16, 2022 dismissal that gave rise to the claim. The court held that the contract in force at the time the triggering event occurred must govern, and that the date of the claim filing on February 15, 2024 did not alter this conclusion. Fourth, the court rejected Mme Assad's interpretation that she was entitled to 25% per month of her $348.97 balance indefinitely up to $25,000, finding that this reading would produce an absurd result. Consistent with the indemnity principle under Article 2463 of the Civil Code of Québec, an insurer must compensate without impoverishing or unjustly enriching the insured; paying out more than the credit card balance would constitute unjust enrichment. On the question of punitive damages, the court was not convinced that any misinformation had been provided, and held that even if an error had occurred, it would have been made in good faith — providing no basis for a punitive award.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court dismissed Mme Assad's claim in its entirety. American Bankers Compagnie d'assurance générale was the successful party. No additional amount was ordered or awarded; the court confirmed that the $348.97 already voluntarily paid by the insurer — representing the full credit card balance at the time of dismissal — was the entirety of any sum that could have been owed. Exercising its discretion given the nature of the issues raised, the court declined to order Mme Assad to reimburse the insurer's judicial costs, with each party bearing its own costs.