Brett Boadway—Chief Operating Officer, IBAO
Each quarter, IBAO commissions a market share report from MSA Research. These are our findings from Q4 2023, which breaks down market share by distribution type. It’s based on insurers’ Insurance Revenue in Ontario.
While market share numbers at first glance look exceptionally positive, it’s crucial to note that the financial reporting standard changes that took place in 2023 as a result of IFRS-17 make it hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison.
“The big change from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023 is the move from IFRS-4 to IFRS-17 and our reporting system has adapted based on IFRS-17 metrics,” said Joel Baker, CEO, MSA Research. “In the past we were reporting using the Direct Written Premium to assess broker market share and now we’re reporting to you using Insurance Revenue.”
As has been reported in past years, these market share numbers can only be treated as rough estimates for several reasons. Firstly, some insurers file their financial results as a single corporate entity, even though they distribute direct and through brokers through that single entity. CAA is an example of this, and our reports have put CAA’s numbers in the “Direct” category. Intact, on the other hand, files financial results per individual company separately, so it’s easy to separate the numbers to review market share by distribution type. Secondly, not all companies share their financial results with MSA, so they’re not included in the report.
With CAA growing in broker distribution in particular, the broker market share percentages, if included, would likely increase the numbers as presented in the below chart.
In addition to the market share numbers presented in the chart above, two other interesting metrics are worth noting:
- 55.87% of all Ontario Auto was written through the broker channel in 2023—this includes personal lines, commercial lines and facility lines combined
- 77.21% of the Facility market was written through the broker channel in 2023
MSA partners with the IBAO and brokers across Canada through their relationship with IBAC and other provincial associations as well as with many brokers directly. MSA’s custom reporting services and its sophisticated Researcher Platform are available to you as well. For more information please reach out to Tesfaye (Tes) Fekade, COO, MSA Research.