Insurance

May 1, 2021 Published by Other - By CCI National

IBC National Commercial Insurance Task Force Final Report

When Canada’s property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry launched its National Commercial Insurance Task Force (Task Force) in January 2020, its initial focus was to help those businesses and organizations, such as condominium and strata corporations, struggling to find affordable insurance options in a hardening commercial insurance market. Then COVID-19 hit.

Message from the Chair

When Canada’s property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry launched its National Commercial Insurance Task Force (Task Force) in January 2020, its initial focus was to help those businesses and organizations, such as condominium and strata corporations, struggling to find affordable insurance options in a hardening commercial insurance market. Then COVID-19 hit. All at once, many more businesses and organizations – restaurants, trucking carriers, non-profits – were hurting and asking to be heard.

Private insurers across Canada responded swiftly to the COVID-19 crisis with an unprecedented relief package. In 2020, the insurance industry returned more than $2.4 billion in personal and commercial insurance relief to help Canadians affected by the pandemic. That relief has continued into 2021.

This Task Force also proved to be up to the job of finding support for businesses and organizations. Participants from affected sectors, from governments and from insurance companies and other stakeholders came together in person (once) and virtually (four times) to work carefully through the problems faced by various business sectors. Each roundtable discussion ended with a list of practical, regionalized and sector-specific recommendations that, if implemented, will go a long way to easing the challenges faced by commercial insurance consumers.

Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), as the national trade association representing Canada’s P&C insurers, organized and hosted the Task Force roundtables. IBC will also play a lead role in advocating for the implementation of the recommendations in this report.

I’d like to thank Task Force members and acknowledge the hard work of so many participants who attended the roundtable discussions and took the time during a challenging year to commit to working with the P&C insurance industry on behalf of businesses and organizations within their sector and, indeed, across the country.

I’d also like to acknowledge the input of Deloitte Canada, which provided the economic perspective that is critical to understanding what drives price and availability in the insurance industry. Deloitte participated as an observer on the Task Force and provided its independent market analysis of the regions and sectors discussed at each roundtable as well as broad national information to inform the discussions.

It is important to acknowledge that the challenges facing Canada’s commercial insurance market are part of a global trend influenced by global events. The Task Force recommendations offer both short- and long-term solutions to help protect Canadian business sectors from these global issues.

There is no one silver bullet that will solve the challenges facing the Canadian commercial insurance market. That is why we have taken a comprehensive approach. Included in this report are recommendations for how the insurance industry, governments and consumers can all help businesses and organizations in each of the condominium, transportation, hospitality and non-profit sectors.

As you can imagine, this report is not the final word on commercial insurance issues in Canada. The P&C insurance industry, through IBC, has committed to providing a follow-up report in a year’s time. The follow-up report will include an update on engagement with governments and stakeholders on the commercial insurance challenges in specific sectors, progress on the implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations, and any impact on availability and affordability of commercial insurance for businesses and organizations. IBC will also continue to engage with Task Force members regularly in an effort to identify emerging issues and collaborate on potential solutions.

As we continue to wrestle with the challenges facing the commercial insurance market in Canada, we will also engage our international colleagues. IBC’s counterpart, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), recently launched a review of that country’s P&C insurance issues and potential reforms, as part of Australia’s national economic recovery post-pandemic. IBC and ICA have already committed to sharing the efforts and success stories of the industry in their regions.

Don Forgeron
Chair, National Commercial Insurance Task Force
President & CEO, IBC

Table of Contents

• Message from the Task Force Chair
• Part 1: Executive Summary
• Part 2: Background on Commercial Insurance Market
• Part 3: Deloitte Market Analysis
• Part 4: Background on the National Commercial Insurance Task Force
• Part 5: Summaries of Task Force Roundtable Discussions and Sector-Specific Recommendations 
• Part 6: General Recommendations for Change
• Part 7: Next Steps
• Appendix A – National Commercial Insurance Task Force Recommendations