Primary-source trackers

Insurer financials, from the regulator's own filings

Every federally regulated insurer in Canada files quarterly financial statements and a capital test with OSFI, and OSFI publishes them. We read those filings for each company: insurance revenue, what goes out in claims and expenses, net income, and the capital ratio against the supervisory target. These are the numbers behind next year's prices.

Why this exists

Insurers describe their results to investors in their own terms and to customers not at all. The regulatory returns are the one place every company reports the same lines on the same definitions, and they are public. Read them and the story is simple: an insurer paying out more than it takes in will be at its regulator asking for a rate increase, and the rate approvals trackers show when that request lands. An insurer with a comfortable expense ratio and rising capital has room to compete on price. This page and the rate trackers are two ends of the same chain.

Financial strength ratings from AM Best and DBRS, which the insurer reviews on this site already verify, are an agency's opinion. The capital ratios here are the underlying arithmetic the agencies start from.