Aviva’s 2025 results see diverging personal-commercial lines pricing

Fiscal 2025 was a tale of two markets for Aviva Canada: softer pricing for commercial lines, and firmer rates across personal insurance.

“We see divergence between the market cycles,” Nav Dhillon, CEO of Aviva Canada tells Canadian Underwriter during a media call today.

“On commercial lines, it continues to soften broadly. And we expect that to continue into 2026, with either flattening or declining rates across the board.”

Two factors are driving this, he says. First is increased capacity, which is spurring competition. Second, there’s been “improved loss ratio performance over the last several years, which is a factor in terms of creating additional capacity in the market. We don’t see that changing in 2026.”

In contrast, Dhillon says personal lines “remain a bit weak with Cat-exposed properties, so then upward pressure, with personal auto still at a market level of 100 [combined operating ratio (COR)].” He notes the company is factoring in regulatory reforms coming to both Ontario this summer, and Alberta in Jan. 2027.

“These are things that most insurers are looking at right now across the personal lines portfolio, which we would say would lead to firm pricing into 2026,” he adds.

By the numbers

Aviva Canada’s posted results for fiscal 2025 show a COR of 95.6%. The company credited this to strong underlying results in personal lines that benefited from rate and underwriting actions, along with reduced auto theft and fewer natural catastrophes (NatCats).

Meanwhile, gross written premium (GWP) growth of 2% in fiscal year 2025 was driven by personal lines increases, offset by price softening in commercial lines. Both COR and GWP are presented on an undiscounted basis.  

Results for 2025 show Canada General Insurance premiums of approximately $8 billion, with personal lines GWP totalling $5 billion, and commercial lines GWP of $3 billion. Premium growth figures are presented in ‘constant currency’ to account for foreign exchange volatility.

“We saw continued growth of 6% in personal lines driven by pricing actions across auto and property,” the earnings statement notes. “Commercial lines premiums were lower by 5% driven by reduced [global corporate and specialty] volumes, where we exited some unprofitable accounts to maintain discipline.”

Commercial considerations

Expanding on commercial lines pricing, Dhillon says softening took place across many lines, including general liability, and umbrella and excess. “A majority of mid-market segments, and even key specialty segments such as D&O and cyber, have seen some of the sharpest reductions, here and globally,” he adds.

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Expanded capacity, and resulting competition, have been driving prices down and stronger rate reductions are being observed in the large corporate space, as opposed to the small-to-medium enterprise (SME) and micro-SME spaces.

Both new market entrants and existing insurers are deploying more capital into the Canadian market. “It’s just generally part of the market cycle that happens after a hard market of several years,” Dhillon says.

Meanwhile, slowing natural catastrophe severity during 2025 is solidifying the view that 2024 was, in fact, an elevated NatCat year for Canada’s entire P&C insurance industry.

“We would say that the lower Cat activity in 2025 benefited the reinsurance market, easing concerns after ’24 and previous years,” Dhillon tells CU.

“When you look at the reinsurance market, the strong results of global reinsurers helped stabilize the Canadian property market subspace, increasing available capacity and contributing to the softer market conditions.

“We as a firm took advantage of this. We obtained all the capacity that we want…on our treaties and we feel in a really strong position to capitalize. We’re just laser-focused on making sure that we’ve got our fundamentals – peril pricing and segmentation – right, and we’re deploying that capacity in the right way to ensure that we are pricing risks appropriately.”

This year’s model

Looking to 2026, Aviva Canada’s earnings statement says it expects to post a “COR approaching 94%, subject to normal weather conditions.”

What facilitates that? Dhillon cites two efforts. First is momentum and focus that’s been expended on guiding the company’s personal auto business “to that sub-95 corridor.” The second is applying that same philosophy to the company’s personal property portfolio.

“We launched a new property model into market earlier this year, and we expect that to guide the business and [make] sure that personal lines business is sustainably performing in that sub-95 range,” he says.

For commercial lines, the objective will be product expansion into the SME space. “SME has been an area of opportunity in Canadian marketplaces that Aviva really hasn’t played meaningfully in,” Dhillon tells CU. “We’re really excited to launch that product to our brokers.”

Phil Porado

Phil, an award-winning journalist with over 30 years of experience in financial topics, has been managing editor of Canadian Underwriter for more than three years.