Auto reforms in Alberta and Ontario, but particularly in Alberta, should help reduce pressure on the personal auto insurance line in Canada, Intact executives told investors during their 2026 Q1 earnings call Wednesday.
“When it comes to the industry, reforms will take place in both Ontario and Alberta,” Intact Financial Corporation CEO Charles Brindamour said on the call. “We view those as positive for drivers and for the vibrancy of the automobile insurance market in these provinces.
“In Alberta in particular, these reforms will go a long way to stabilize what’s today a loss-making market with severe capacity shortages.”
Across Canada, auto rate increases have been stable at the mid-single-digit range for the six or seven consecutive quarters, said Ken Anderson, Intact Financial Corporation’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.
But that’s the coast to coast picture, Brindamour added.
“In Alberta…the issue is that you’re in the double-digit range there,” Brindamour said. “If you look at those reforms, I think the government has done an awesome job to go to the heart of the issue, to go from cash to care, and to really improve the system.
“So we’re really looking forward to the improvement in the system in 2027. And this will help create more vibrancy in Alberta, because it’s a tough market right now.”
Alberta’s auto insurers collectively lost $1.2 billion in 2024, with a majority of the province’s auto insurers reporting financial losses, according to the latest annual report from the province’s Superintendent of Insurance.
“Alberta’s automobile insurance GISR [Gross Insurance Service Ratio] deteriorated from approximately 93% in 2023 to approximately 118% in 2024,” the 2025 report states. “This clearly indicates an overall operational loss for the year.”
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In response, Alberta is proposing to establish a no-fault insurance system in 2027 that focuses on paying out auto accident benefits and cutting out access to the tort side, so as to slash insurers’ legal costs for litigating over liability. Alberta has said the accident benefits package will be generous, so that the need to sue is reduced.
One investor on the Intact quarterly call noted the number of auto insurance policies in force at Intact was down in 2026 Q1 and asked if the downward trend of auto policies in force had to do with the unprofitable auto market in Alberta, or something else.
“It is Alberta-related, yeah,” Brindamour replied.
“It’s still up but going up at a slightly lower pace than where we were [in 2025 Q3]. And it’s because we’ve taken some defensive measures in Alberta until the reforms are effective.”
Minus Alberta, Intact would be gaining market share in personal auto in Canada, the execs confirmed.
In Ontario, the province is poised on July 1 to make many once-mandatory benefits optional. The theory is that by making some benefits optional, consumers have the option of not paying for benefits they don’t want, thereby lowering the cost of their insurance premiums.
Intact welcomes the consumer choice central to the Ontario reforms, but it’s unclear the full impact they may make on lowering auto insurance premiums.
“We see these options as neutral from a bottom-line perspective,” said Anderson. “They’re properly priced. The optionality is a small portion of the premium [in] Ontario, roughly 4%, and we think that the take-up rates will be fairly high. So we think it’s actually also almost-neutral from a top-line perspective. So it shouldn’t change much the output in Ontario.”
Rising inflation is an ongoing battle for auto insurers throughout the country, as the technology in cars has become more costly to repair. Also, the length and complexity of the repairs mean the cycle times are somewhat longer. And because of these dynamics, total losses are escalating.
Inflation rates for car repairs have persisted in the mid-single digits, Intact notes.
And partly for this reason, Intact sees a continuing rate increases in auto over the next 12 months, pending the effects of the reforms being felt.
“In personal auto, premiums grew 9% in the [2026 first] quarter,” said Brindamour. But with the industry remaining unprofitable in ’25, we expect industry premium growth to remain in the high single digits throughout the year.”