The State of the Canadian Property & Casualty Insurance Brokerage Industry in 2025: Smythe LLP

Smythe Insurance Brokerage Industry Report, 10th edition —

By Alex Wong, Advisory Partner, Smythe LLP, et al —

For well over a decade now, we at Smythe have endeavored to put together as comprehensive a report as possible on the state of the Canadian property and casualty insurance brokerage industry.

In this report, we share an analysis of survey responses and market data to explore current and emerging trends in the industry, as well as a snapshot of the financial performance of various insurance brokerages across the country.

For our analysis, we also relied on our own proprietary database, which we believe is one of the largest available databases of independent brokerage financial performance information in Canada.

The report also contains a significant amount of editorial opinion based on the collective experience of the Smythe Property & Casualty team, which includes Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA), Chartered Business Valuators (CBV), M&A Advisors and Tax Specialists.

As always, we would like to extend our gratitude to all those who chose to participate in this survey. Our goal with this report is to provide practical insight and contribute meaningful research that supports the long-term health of the brokerage industry. None of that would be possible without the trust placed in us by brokerage owners across Canada. Thank you to those who took the time and effort to complete our surveys and share with us their financial data.

The Canadian P&C Insurance Landscape

The property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry plays a critical role in the Canadian economy. Property insurance provides financial protection in the event of damage to physical property or valuable possessions such as automobiles and buildings. Casualty insurance mainly covers legal liability against individuals and organizations for negligent acts or omissions. Insurance is an effective way of spreading risk by having an entire group share the losses of a small group. These two types of insurance are also known collectively as “general insurance” as they encompass much of what customers demand.

Two key players in the distribution chain of the insurance industry are insurance companies (also known as underwriters or insurers) and brokers.

The insurance company is usually the one who evaluates risks, sets coverages and premium rates, and collects those premiums from customers upfront to insure risk. They then use this pool of funds to pay out claims and for other operating expenses. There is often a gap between when a premium is collected and when a claim needs to be paid out, which creates a capital pool that the companies can then use to invest. Brokers are generally the final link in the chain, acting as an intermediary between the insurance company and the customer (individual or business). Brokerages can represent multiple insurers, offering their customers options for any type of insurance. Insurance agents, on the other hand, only represent a single insurance company. There are also insurance companies that sell and deliver policies directly to policy holders; these are known as direct writers.

The financial model of the insurance industry allows a customer to pay their premium either directly to the insurance company (known as a direct bill) or to the broker (agency bill).

Brokerages make the majority of their income from premiumbased commissions (i.e., a flat percentage of premiums that varies across lines of business and insurers). This commission typically ranges from anywhere between 11% and 25% depending on the type of policy purchased. In the case of an agency bill, the broker will collect the premium and remit it to the insurance company net of the agreed commission. With a direct bill, the insurance company will collect the premium and then pay the broker the commissions earned.

Insurance brokers may also receive contingent profit commission (CPC). A CPC is paid if a broker places profitable business with the insurer. CPC is generally calculated based on the percentage of claims paid to premiums earned (earned loss ratio) along with the volume of business placed with the insurer. The lower the earned loss ratio, the greater the CPC. These payments can therefore vary significantly from year to year.

Effective January 1, 2023, Canadian insurers transitioned from recognizing revenue based on direct premiums written to recognizing insurance revenue that reflects a number of assumptions to arrive at an estimate of the earned portion of premiums over the coverage period. In 2024, total premiums written in Canada amounted to approximately $99.5 billion1 while insurance revenue amounted to $107.8 billion, excluding the Insurance Corporation of BC (ICBC) and Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI).

Total insurance revenue of the top ten insurer groups account for approximately 63% of the market – an increase from the 60% they controlled in 2023.

Despite continued consolidation, the overall market is still competitive. Intact is the only player that has a market share above 10%. While all of the top 10 insurers increased their market share slightly, all insurers saw premium growth over the past five years that was relatively in-line with increases in the overall market.

Read more: Access the full 2025 Property & Casualty insurance brokerage report from Smythe LLP. This report looks at the opinions of insurance brokerage owners and senior executives surveyed in May 2025, compares the results to our last report in 2023, and provides our analysis of what they had to say. We also asked brokerages about their preferred succession paths, the factors they are weighing, and how prepared they feel today. The results show a clear mix of intentions, constraints, and emerging trends.

About Smythe

Smythe is a BC-based accounting firm recognized for exceptional work in the areas of assurance, taxation and business advisory services for private and public companies, family-owned businesses and not-for-profit clients. Our skilled audit, tax and advisory specialists are a diverse team of professionals – many of whom are experts in the technology real estate and construction and resources industries. For more information, visit www.smythecpa.com.

Source: Smythe LLP