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New traffic bylaw reshapes road-use rules in Alberta municipality

Where you park your camper, whether your cattle are grazing on a road allowance and how quickly you must shovel your sidewalk — a newly passed bylaw touches on a wide range of everyday issues across the MD of Pincher Creek.

Council approved Bylaw 1365-25 on May 12, establishing updated rules governing traffic, parking, recreational vehicles, off-highway vehicles and the use of municipal road allowances.

The traffic bylaw was passed following a process that began with first reading in September 2025 and included a public open house, legal review and multiple rounds of amendments.

The bylaw is intended to give the MD clearer authority to regulate traffic, parking, vehicles, animals and pedestrian activity while supporting public safety, property protection and the orderly use of public spaces.

In its report to council, administration noted the move was driven by growth of the MD’s enforcement services department and the need to modernize existing rules to better serve and protect ratepayers.

A public hearing was not legally required — the Municipal Government Act mandates hearings for land-use bylaws and rezoning applications, not traffic bylaws. The MD chose to actively seek public feedback anyway.

The bylaw came back to council in December 2025, but administration determined further changes were needed, particularly around road allowances and clarity of enforcement and appeal processes.

A council committee reviewed the amended bylaw in January 2026 and legal counsel reviewed the road allowance provisions and two schedules attached to the document.

The changes made after the legal review included updated terminology, replacing “Lessor/Lesee” with “Grantor/Grantee.” The termination notice period for road allowance permits from three days to 30 days, in line with the Traffic Safety Act.

What the bylaw means for residents

For most residents, the bylaw’s day-to-day implications are straightforward.

Provisions include restrictions on draining vehicle fluids onto highways, placing debris or obstructions on roads and sidewalks, and creating hazards that interfere with traffic or pedestrian movement.

Property owners adjacent to sidewalks are required to clear snow, ice, dirt and other obstructions within 24 hours of accumulation. The bylaw also prohibits extension cords from being placed across sidewalks or driveways in a way that could create a hazard.

The municipality has authority to remove obstructions or impound vehicles and equipment that block highways or create unsafe conditions, with associated costs recoverable from the responsible party.

Heavy vehicles face their own restrictions. They are generally prohibited from parking in the MD’s hamlets — Beaver Mines, Lowland Heights, Lundbreck, Pincher Station and Twin Butte — unless they are actively loading or unloading, or are construction equipment parked next to a work site.

Vehicles equipped with metal cleats or tracks are barred from paved highways to prevent road damage.

The bylaw also places restrictions on recreational vehicles. Unattached RVs may not be parked on highways, while attached ones may only be parked adjacent to the owner’s residence between May 1 and Oct. 15.

Recreational vehicles parked on highways are limited to 72 consecutive hours and must then be removed for at least 48 hours before returning.

Camping or residing in recreational vehicles on highways, ditches, road allowances or other public places is prohibited outside approved campground facilities.

Off-highway vehicles, including quads and similar machines, are generally prohibited from operating on municipal highways unless used for agricultural work, snow removal or under a special permit issued by the municipality. Any off-highway vehicle operating under those exceptions must be registered and insured under the Traffic Safety Act.

One of the most detailed sections of the bylaw deals with the use of developed and undeveloped municipal road allowances, the strips of publicly owned land that run alongside or between properties in the municipality.

The bylaw prohibits residents from developing, irrigating, farming or otherwise using road allowances for agricultural purposes without municipal authorization. Fencing, corrals and barriers are also prohibited unless approved through a Temporary Road Allowance Permit.

The permit system formalizes how livestock grazing and certain agricultural uses may occur on road allowances.

Insurance requirements

Applications must identify the location, intended use and fencing plans. Permit holders must also carry at least $2 million in general liability insurance and install a public access sign at the gate.

The bylaw requires livestock on road allowances to be secured using electric fencing and gates must remain unlocked to maintain public access.

It also creates an appeal process through the Enforcement Services Appeal Board for applicants whose permits are denied or cancelled.

The bylaw outlines enforcement powers available to peace officers, including issuing municipal orders, violation tickets and towing or impounding vehicles involved in contraventions.

For unauthorized agricultural activity on road allowances, the municipality may order corrective action, remove equipment or livestock and recover costs from the responsible person if compliance orders are ignored.

In cases involving livestock placed on road allowances without approval, the municipality may capture and confine animals in accordance with Alberta’s Stray Animals Act.

The bylaw establishes penalties for offences ranging from parking violations to unauthorized agricultural use of road allowances.

Specified penalties start from $75 for some traffic-control offences. Fines for road allowance violations start at $375 and can reach $8,000 for failing to comply with a municipal order affecting more than 15 acres.

Across all sections of the bylaw, penalties can reach as high as $10,000 upon conviction, with repeat offenders facing doubled or tripled fines within a 12-month period.

The bylaw passed at the May 12 meeting with all attending members in favour. Coun. Tony Bruder was absent.

May 20, 2026
How insurers can face real-world climate risks

It wasn’t your imagination, 2024 really was a climate risk turning point for insurers and reinsurers in Canada, panellists tell a session on global climate resilience at Insurance Bureau of Canada’s recent 2026 IBC InSight Summit.

“It kind of consolidated and brought to the forefront something that was happening over the years. And a lot of companies…were talking about this for many decades,” says Agis Kitsikis, market head for property and casualty reinsurance at Swiss Re. That ‘something’ is a trend toward multibillion dollar insured losses in Canada spurred by natural catastrophe (NatCat) events.

“This trend became really apparent in 2024,” he says. “Another key element to this is the ratio between losses that are climate related versus the peak risk of earthquake, given that we’re in Canada. [For] these secondary perils…the ratio of the contribution to this entire pool of loss moved from close to 30% in the first decade [of the 21^st Century] to 50% to 55% [in the] second decade, and now we’re close to 70%, 90% of losses coming from secondary peril.”

Risk on the ground

Bringing a client’s perspective to the discussion, Shashanka Suresh, director of sustainability and ESG at real estate developer Dream, says it’s getting harder for property developers and owners to ignore climate risk.

“In the Canadian context, the wildfires out West [have] been a little bit of a wake-up call. And even here in Toronto, wildfires in the northern part of the province have resulted in…smoky skies. That’s not something that we can ignore anymore,” he tells the conference.

“We are thinking about the value of our assets, but also the comfort of our tenants, because that becomes an important consideration for us….We’re sort of at an inflection point where climate risk is being talked about in different spheres.”

Commercial real estate firms have a close eye on how climate shifts will impact the value of certain properties, and how natural hazards directly impact real assets.

“But there’s some softer pieces that are [less tangible],” Suresh adds. “When Toronto had the extreme heat wave last summer, there were some stories of tenants legally going after their landlords because the [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] systems were not efficient enough to service them as tenants. And that’s a legal risk, that’s a reputational risk that we as real estate owners and operators need to be thinking about as an industry.”

In terms of planning, he says historical data is no longer adequate to determine risks to assets in various geographic regions.

“We’re now looking at probabilistic models, thinking through those different future scenarios [and] also looking at different time horizons,” Suresh says. “And the time horizons piece is interesting for real estate, because it can really help you strategize about your acquisitions and dispositions.”

Changing times

Looking at emerging data, Kitsikis says the key thing from an insurance and a reinsurance perspective is the underlying exposure. He notes companies’ concentration of exposure in NatCat-prone areas and economic drivers like inflation are combining to create significant cost issues.

“Forget about climate change,” he says. “If you have the same event happen today [that happened] 15 years ago, it would cost a lot more. And if you add the climate impact…it just amplifies that reality.”

Suresh says he’s seen risk amplification firsthand when visiting buildings that were constructed to building codes in place 20 or 30 years ago. Today, they cannot withstand weather patterns that have emerged in certain regions.

“When [one building I looked at] was built up to code about 23 years ago, it was taking into consideration the precipitation patterns at the time, and even after two or three extreme rainfall events, we are noticing now that…the drainage systems are not effective enough to drain all the additional water that’s now being collected on the roofs, and even this water in front of the building,” he tells the conference.

“We need to think about how climate risks are evolving [and] the pace at which they’re evolving.”

May 20, 2026
A pedestrian says he got hit by a car. Why the tribunal said he wasn’t involved in an ‘accident’
A pedestrian who claimed to be injured as a result of a vehicle backing into him and his pregnant fiancée didn’t produce or appear in any documentation showing he was involved in an “accident,” an Ontario tribunal found.

The man’s name did not appear in the police report of the accident, nor in the adjuster’s field notes, both of which noted three people were involved in the incident, including an unnamed “pedestrian,” a “driver,” and the vehicle “owner.”

“I find that the [claimant’s] name [Devante Ashman] is not mentioned anywhere in the reports and there is also no mention that there was more than one pedestrian involved in the accident,” the Ontario Licence Appeals Tribunal (LAT) ruled in a decision released May 13.

“The pedestrian, who is the [claimant’s] fiancé according to his reply submissions, provided a statement to the police at the scene which is contained in these notes. I find there is no mention in this statement that she was accompanied by the [claimant] or that he was involved in the accident….

“While I accept that there can be errors made in police reports as suggested by the [claimant], I give significant weight to the fact that there is no mention of [his] involvement in either of the police reports or the statement of his own fiancé.”

Ashman insisted that he was injured in the July 9, 2022 accident and claimed more than $4,000 in accident benefits. His auto insurer, CAA Insurance, denied the claim on the basis he could not prove he was involved in the accident.

Aside from citing the police reports and adjuster’s field notes, Ashman referenced other instances of documentation that he said proved his involvement in the accident. Among them:

medical record evidence, namely the clinical notes and records of Dr. Maria Bagovich and Dr. Rahim Jessa, which he said, “identify his accident-related injuries consistent with the described mechanism of his injury,” as the tribunal paraphrased.

sworn testimony at an examination under oath on Sept. 26, 2022.

LAT found the medical records of Dr. Bagovich did not support Ashman’s claim.

Also in the news: Is insurance facing its Napster moment?

“Upon review of the medical documentation submitted by [Ashman], specifically the CNRs of Dr. Bagovich and the report dated Dec. 11, 2024, there is no mention of his involvement in an accident on July 9, 2022.

“Dr. Bagovich notes in her report her previous diagnosis of the [claimant] with axial spondyloarthritis in February 2017 and notes the [claimant’s] complaints of a flare up in his back because he missed his regular injection of Simponi in December.”

Ashman did not submit Dr. Jessa’s clinical notes for review, the tribunal noted. Likewise, he did not provide a transcript of his examination under oath.

In the absence of documentary evidence supporting his claim, Ashman said the insurer acted as though he had been involved in the accident when it adjusted his claim.

The tribunal did not agree.

“I…do not accept the [claimant’s] submission that the [insurer’s] conduct demonstrates that it treated this as an accident throughout its investigation and led him to believe that his claim was accepted,” LAT Adjudicator Melanie Malach wrote in the decision.

“I find that the correspondence of the [insurer], specifically the letters dated Sept. 16, 2022, Oct. 3, 2022, June 29, 2023, and Sept. 1, 2023, consistently advises [Ashman] that his involvement in the accident is under investigation and that [his] claim was being handled on a without prejudice basis.”
May 20, 2026
Are client supplier cyberattacks increasing in Canada?
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Canadian companies that suffered a cyberattack in the past 12 months indicate a supplier was involved, according to research from business insurer QBE. That’s up from 58% last year.

In Canada, 57% of businesses experienced one or more cyber events over the past 12 months, slightly higher than last year (53%), QBE Canada says in a press release Tuesday. Among affected businesses, 65% suffered at least one cyberattack that was related to a supplier and 58% experienced revenue loss (up from 51%).

For the study, market research firm Opinium surveyed 400 decision-makers handling IT, administration or insurance at businesses with between 100 and 2,000 employees in Canada. The survey was fielded from March 31 to April 20, 2026. The 2026 global survey covered 15 countries, with a total sample of more than 6,000 businesses.

Canadian Underwriter has heard cyberattacks involving suppliers have been increasing. At the Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta (IBAA) Convention 2026 last week, BOXX Insurance president Jonathan Weekes anticipated this trend would continue. Supply chain or infrastructure-related breaches will increase in Canada as organizations shift toward cloud-based solutions or standardized software platforms to run their business, he says.

And, at its 2025 Insurance Conference in Toronto last November, KPMG said it was seeing more ‘hybrid’ cyberattacks targeting both first and third parties.

Cyber insurance take-up increases

The good news from a cyber insurance perspective is that more Canadian businesses are purchasing cyber coverages. Seventy-two percent now have cyber insurance, compared to 67% last year.

QBE also reports Canadian businesses are taking various steps to safely roll out artificial intelligence (AI) within their operations, from training staff on responsible AI use, to checking data quality or monitoring outputs for bias. However, these businesses worry their vendors might not be taking similar measures. Indeed, 63% of Canadian businesses are concerned about potential risks arising from how their suppliers use AI.

“AI risk doesn’t stop at the internal perimeter,” Kyle Gray, underwriter team lead at QBE Canada, says in the release. “Organizations need the same level of discipline and oversight across their third-party ecosystem, because weaknesses in the supply chain can quickly become risks to the business itself.”

To mitigate third-party vulnerabilities, QBE suggests businesses should:

Implement strong identity and access management (IAM) protocols, which control who can access technology resources and what they’re allowed to do once granted access

Run regular configuration audits

Encrypt sensitive data across all cloud environments

Evaluate the security posture of third-party providers

Establish clear protocols for managing supply chain exposure.

Emerging AI threat

According to QBE’s research, one in three Canadian businesses (33%) also experienced cyber incidents in the past 12 months that they believed leveraged AI, with phishing among the most frequent methods.

And 16% of polled Canadian businesses experienced a cyber event in the last 12 months that resulted in business interruption of one working day or more (down from 18% in last year’s study).

The research found two in three respondents (65%) are concerned about cyber threats their business may experience over the next 12 months, a smaller proportion than last year (78%), but still prompting investment.

Most Canadian businesses say their IT cybersecurity budget is going to increase over the coming year (31% say these investments will be in line with inflation and 31% say it will exceed the inflation rate). More than eight in 10 (83%) have an incident response plan, up from 79% in last-year’s survey.

AI is becoming ubiquitous in the Canadian economy, with 97% of businesses using it (83%) in 2026 or looking into using it (14%), up from 94% last year.

Increasing operational efficiency and productivity are among the top motivations for deploying AI, with more than half of businesses rolling out the technology mentioning these objectives.

“As new technologies such as AI become embedded in operations, effective risk management remains fundamental to ensuring sustainable and resilient growth,” Gray says.
May 19, 2026
Is insurance facing its Napster moment?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the canary in the coal mine for the insurance industry, and the industry needs to prepare for what’s coming, speakers said May 11 at Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta’s Convention 2026 in Banff.

“This is the insurance Napster moment,” says Pete Tessier, president of MGA Taycon Risk and the Canadian Association of Managing General Agents (CAMGA), referring to the music sharing service that faced a copyright infringement lawsuit and was shut down in 2001.

“All of you in your offices have clients, that’s your music library,” Tessier says while moderating a Carrier CEO Panel at the conference. “You’re going to have to decide if you’re going to let AI come and take it from you, or if you’re going to own the AI and the technology.

“That’s the mistake the music industry made, and now they give away a million streams, and they get 12 cents for it.”

As an example, Tessier says he helped build an AI underwriting assistant, which took 28 minutes and could compare inspection reports against submission forms to see what was accurate.

“And if you put your heads in the sand and ignore it, there are going to be changes that you don’t want happening,” Tessier says. “It’s coming…it scares me a lot, because I don’t think we get the wave of this…”

Number 1 topic

Evan Johnston, president and CEO of Wawanesa, says he was in Europe about two weeks ago, talking to approximately 20 insurance company CEOs about what was happening in the industry and what we could probably expect to see in Canada. The topics ranged from talent to climate change and others, but the Number 1 topic was AI, Johnston says.

“It’s very clear to me that AI is going to change this industry, and it’s certainly going to change our organization,” Johnston says. “And when I talked to that group of leaders…there were some that were way ahead of us [and] some that were completely denying that this was happening.”

He adds Wawanesa hasn’t really used AI to “change customer experience, but that’s coming.

“The examples and the models that we saw just completely blew my mind,” Johnston says. “So to deny this is going to change our industry, I think, is negligent.”

Louis Gagnon, CEO of Canada for Intact Financial Corporation, recommends the industry use AI as much as possible — “test it, call places where you know that they’re using AI, look at what they do, how they do it, if the experience is good or the experience is not good…

“Ask your accountant to do a little exercise on how much he’s going to charge you, and do it on AI to see what’s the outcome,” Gagnon says. “And I’m not teasing here.”

Full transformation

Within five years, Gagnon predicts AI will transform the ways consumers are shopping. It will also transform the industry through claims and broker relationships, as well as provide industry professionals a chance to spend more time on value-added activity, he suggests.

“I think it’s also going to cut jobs,” Gagnon says. “I think it’s going to reduce the number of people in [an] organization…and it’s going to transform the workforce.

“So, I really think we cannot put our head in the sand and just think that, ‘Well, we’re going to be okay. Things are going to be a bit different. We’re going to be better,’” he says. “I think it’s going to be a bigger change than that.

“So, I think it’s fundamental that we test it, we try it, we play with it, and we try to see in our business where we can implement it,” Gagnon says, adding that some things will go wrong with AI.

“I also think that people in general are going to be very hungry and thirsty for human contacts,” he says. “They are going to be very, very happy to talk to people, to shake hands, to [look] people in the eyes. There’s going to be also that aspect that will not go away.”

Nav Dhillon, CEO of Aviva Canada, agrees the relationship element of insurance will not disappear.

“When a customer has just gone [through] a devastating event and wants to talk to somebody and ensure that their most-loved possessions are back with them or their home [is] rebuilt, [that] won’t go away.”

Dhillon also doesn’t see an end of the industry because of the core purpose of insurance — to help get people back on track.

“This industry has been around for centuries,” he says. “Aviva has been around for over 325 years. It will be around for another 325 or more.”

May 15, 2026
TD Insurance releases client-facing chatbot

Earlier this month, TD Insurance released its first client-facing generative AI chatbot, the TDI Virtual Assistant, to help clients find answers through natural-language conversations.

The virtual assistant retrieves and summarizes information from the TD Insurance website for home, auto and small business insurance to answer general insurance queries. In a conversational tone, it can answer questions on topics such as accident benefits coverage and documentation required to obtain car insurance.

TD started with those three lines of business because they have the largest volumes in its insurance segment, said Kristen Gill, vice president and executive journey product owner at TD Insurance. The insurer plans to expand the chatbot to life and health insurance at a later stage.

TDI Virtual Assistant took about a year to build, said Christopher Cooney, vice president of analytics and modelling at TD Insurance. Its development involved the technology solutions team, insurance experts, lawyers, and Layer 6, TD’s AI research and development centre.

Although Layer 6 had experience developing internal tools at TD, building an external-facing AI posed unique challenges, Cooney added. To mitigate the risk of hallucinations, the chatbot uses retrieval-augmented generation technology, an AI framework that improves large language model accuracy by retrieving data only from trusted content libraries. In this case, TDI Virtual Assistant can only reference material already on TDI’s website.

Another guardrail was to get the tone of voice right when interacting with customers, Cooney said. Users can tell TDI what’s working and not working by clicking the thumbs up or down feedback icon on the chatbot’s responses.

Also in the news: What U.S. budget cuts mean for NatCat forecasts

In its early days, humans will closely monitor the chatbot’s performance to ensure it comes up with satisfactory answers, Gill said. But the goal is to move to machine-assisted monitoring, in which AI helps humans supervise the AI chatbot.

For now, the chatbot is unauthenticated, meaning users don’t need to log in, so it can only answer general queries, Gill explained. If customers need more personalized advice, such as updating their policy details, the chatbot will encourage them to call for assistance.

Eventually, TDI intends to provide an authenticated chatbot service, allowing customers to get personalized advice, Gill said. The technology is still in its infancy, and the insurer’s compliance department is exploring what kinds of changes AI would be allowed to make from a regulatory perspective.

In the future, other client-facing AI applications could include using natural language to help a customer obtain insurance quotes and report claims, Gill added. “We will want to build that capability with the right processes and guardrails and controls to make sure that customer information is safe.”

Special to Canadian Underwriter from Jonathan Got, a reporter with Advisor.ca and Investment Executive.

May 15, 2026
Definity’s strategy for integrating new business lines

Pricing is important, and it’s among the issues facing Definity Financial Corporation as it aligns the expense and loss ratio sides of the recently acquired Travelers Canada business with its own operations.

Those alignment opportunities vary by line of business, Rowan Saunders, Definity’s president and CEO tells a May 8 earnings call in response to an analyst’s questions.

On the commercial side, both Saunders and Obaid Rahman, Definity’s executive vice president for Commercial Insurance say, that market is divided between large account segments where competition has intensified, and smaller accounts.

“We’ve mentioned in a couple of quarters, that the market is bifurcated where competition is most intense in the large account segment,” Rahman tells the call. “Over 80% of our business is not in that segment. When we look at the renewal book that we have, we have strong retention, and we’re still getting strong rate on the majority of that book. We don’t really have any concern with how the renewal portfolio is performing, the margin it’s holding, no concerns there.”

Commercial approach

As for new business within commercial segments, underwriting discipline is pushing a shift in the portfolio mix to ensure Definity is writing more smaller accounts than larger accounts.

“What that’s doing is, it’s having an impact on the overall growth, premium growth percentage by about a couple of points, but we are gaining market share, maintaining our margin and we’re continuing to grow the customer base…,” Rahman tells the call. “We’ve talked about how well the Travelers’ integration is going. We expect that retention of that book to continue to strengthen as we move forward. We’re already very close to where the Definity retention is.”

Related: Definity Q1 earnings show Travelers integration producing results

With Q1 behind them, the company is onboarding new underwriters as part of the transition.

“The first wave of production underwriters from the Travelers side got deployed towards the end of Q1. The second wave is coming in Q2,” he says. “What we see is that extra capacity that will come on board, as well as the new products and capabilities that will keep on rolling through the year. That will give us a boost in growth.”

Meanwhile, the digital platforms on the small business side will help the company gain share on the specialty market side.

“We’re managing the cycle with a lot of discipline in terms of preserving margin. Our small business specialty, as well as the Travelers capabilities com[ing] on board, will continue to give us market outperformance and be sort of in that mid-single-digit range as we go through the year,” Rahman tells the call.

Overall, for commercial lines, and for personal lines home insurance, “there are not any material segments or portfolios that don’t fit our appetite or need significant actions,” Saunders says.

Personal auto probably had the most loss, Saunders says.

“There will be two things happening there,” he says. “There will be their own rate filings that started last year earning through. Then as it converts onto our platform, the portfolio will become aligned with Definity binding rules, segmentation, and pricing. That’s just automatically going to happen over the conversion cycle.”

May 15, 2026
Meet Aviva Canada’s new chief people officer

Aviva Canada has appointed senior human resources executive Anne Berend as Chief People Officer, effective June 1, 2026.

Berend has 30 years of experience across the financial services, telecommunications, technology, and consumer goods sectors.

“I’m delighted to welcome Anne to my senior leadership team,” Aviva Canada CEO Nav Dhillon comments. “Anne’s deep expertise in talent management will be invaluable as we continue to build on and elevate the brilliant culture and world-class teams we have at Aviva.”

Most recently, Berend was the chief human resources officer at Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, responsible for enhancing areas including talent management, succession planning, and performance management.

Before that, Berend headed up the Human Resources departments at RSA Canada and Meridian Credit Union. In addition, her LinkedIn profile shows five years of executive human resources experience with Rogers Communications from 2012-17, as well as with IBM and Coca Cola before that.

In this new role, Berend will report to Aviva Group and will be a member of Aviva Canada’s executive committee.

May 14, 2026
Where Definity is seeing gains from the Travelers integration
Definity Financial Corporation posted $36 million in run-rate expense synergies linked to integration of Travelers Canada business into its operations during 2026 Q1, according to management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) included in its quarterly regulatory filings.

(Run-rate expense calculations determine a company’s operating costs on an annualized basis by extrapolating short-term spending, quarterly in this case, over a full year.)

Provided the first-quarter trend holds, that means Definity is “in position to achieve run-rate expense synergies of at least $100 million (pre-tax) within 36 months of close,” according to the company’s MD&A.

“We now expect to realize approximately one-third of our $100 million target in the first 12 months, and the remainder over the subsequent 24 months,” the filing adds.

Related: Definity Q1 earnings show Travelers integration producing results

Three main sources for synergies identified by the company include:

technology platform consolidation, as acquired personal and commercial volumes migrate onto Definity’s platforms

elimination of service charges from Travelers’ U.S. parent company

“operational efficiencies driven by elimination of duplicative and administrative activities and the benefits of scale.”

During a May 8 earnings call with investment industry analysts, Definity president and CEO Rowan Saunders notes: “While these initial savings are largely from the elimination of U.S. parent company service charges and proactive attrition management, the next phase of synergies will be driven by technology platform consolidation and operational efficiencies as the integration progresses.”

He adds discipline around costs to achieve those savings are equally important.

“To date, we have incurred approximately $93 million in acquisition costs and recorded $44 million of integration-specific expenses, keeping us firmly on track with our total estimate,” Saunders says, adding the careful execution shows up on the company’s balance sheet.

“Our debt-to-capital ratio is already down to 26.8%, approaching our long-term target of 25%, well ahead of our 24-month guidance. Even after funding this major acquisition, our total financial capacity remains robust at more than $1.1 billion, putting us in an enviable position to fund future organic growth and deliver on our capital priorities.”

Business priorities

One goal emphasized during the earning call is retention of the acquired Travelers Canada business.

“If you just look at the total growth in the first quarter of 35.4% to $1.4 billion overall…we’d say about 80% of that growth is coming through the acquired business in the first quarter,” chief financial officer Philip Mather tells the earnings call in response to a question on breakdown of the 2026 Q1 earnings growth. “Now, attribution to that gets less simple as time goes on, because with the pace of integration, we’ve already unified the new business offering. Trying to split that between the acquired operations versus the underlying run rate activity gets more complex as you go.

“That said, if you take the 35.4% and you…simply isolate out the impact of the retained premiums that we acquired through the deal, the split for that is just over 27% [and] is coming from the retention of the acquired premiums in the quarter. Just over 8% is coming from the underlying organic growth of the business, combined with the Travelers new business contribution in that quarter.”

For context, he adds, that 27% from the acquired business represents a roughly 82% retention rate for that block of business. “That’s already within just a couple of points of our company-wide retention rate,” Mather adds.

Investment income and capital growth

Another plus from the Travelers acquisition was a 60% growth in net investment income to $79.9 million during the quarter, Mather tells the earnings call. He notes the change was “driven primarily by the large asset base from the acquisition,” along with the company’s repositioning as fixed-income yields increased.

“Given this strong performance on our view of the current yield environment, we now expect our net investment income for the full year 2026 will be approximately $320 million,” he adds.

“Our broker distribution platform operating income grew by nearly 25%, driven by strong policy growth and favorable contingent profit commissions earned on a high-quality portfolio.”

And, in response to an analyst question about Definity’s financial capacity of $1.15 billion following the close of the Travelers Canada transaction being “higher than we would have expected,” Saunders replies the company is “very happy” with the outcome.

“Our experience is that this would not put us on the sideline for other opportunities that come by…,” he tells the earnings call. “We’re happy to keep building up some of that capital because our conviction is that there will continue to be M&A opportunities in the Canadian marketplace over the next couple of years.”
May 13, 2026
A broker’s guide to captive insurance

Captives remain a large untapped market for Alberta brokers. They provide benefits through greater control of claims and books of business, but short-term drawbacks such as financial strain, a captive insurance professional said Sunday during an industry event.

Captive insurance is a licensed insurance company that an insured owns to self-insure their risks. They offer greater control over claims and premiums, but come with short-term financial and resource strain, says Whitney Benson, founder and chief operating officer/chief technology officer at CaptiveSimple.

“Captives offer your clients the opportunity to control their claims in a way that best suits them,” she says during Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta’s (IBAA) Convention 2026 in Banff. “And the biggest thing of all is that captives also afford your clients the opportunity to have 60% of their premiums returned to them,” through a loss fund.

Benson reports captives boast a 99% retention rate, with $1.2 billion available in the addressable market in Canada. “That’s commercial premiums that could be written into captives.”

She adds captives are in it for the long-run and each captive needs premiums in excess of $250,000. Traditionally, coverages placed into captives include commercial property and liabilities.

Claims advantage

From a claims perspective, captive owners hold control traditionally held by carriers. For example, usually when a claim happens, a carrier decides which adjuster or vehicle repair shop to use.

“In the world of captives, the captive owner has that control,” Benson says. “They can make those decisions, and through that, they have greater financial stability.

“[Captive owners] also control their premiums, since those premiums are reflecting their claims, their business alone, not in the industry as a whole.”

Likewise, captives on the broker side do not need to worry about carriers’ risk appetite next year when renewal occurs, or rate increases that are coming down the pipe, Benson says. “You don’t have to worry about how the claim is going to be handled, so you have a greater control for that client.”

Short-term pain for long-term gain

But brokers may say, “So, I’m going to place all this business into the captive, and I’m a producer and I make 100% commission, so then what? And what’s going to happen to my brokerage when my book of business drops?

“Well, that’s one of the drawbacks,” Benson says. “But as you’re building out that capacity over here in the captives, you are going to have to build out capacity, back in that traditional commercial sense.

“You are going to have to take on a little bit of hardship,” she adds. “It can be a very difficult and expensive first year, but that return on investment in the long run, that revenue stability, is worth it in the end.”

Brokerage captive owners may also need to spend money on education or shifting their culture from policy-selling to becoming strategic risk advisors, Benson says.

“There’s a role shift there, and that takes time and that takes money as well,” she says. “So, it can be a huge strain on resources.”

Alberta’s regulatory framework enabling captive insurance companies became effective July 1, 2022, making it the second province (after British Columbia) to allow formal captive insurance domiciles.

May 13, 2026