How specific coverage segments fared financially in 2024

Canada’s property and casualty (P&C) insurance sector saw some tough times in 2024. But, as is always the case, insurance is a story of multiple lines, and each tells its own story.

For example, Canadian personal and multi-lines carriers experienced revenue growth of 10.5% in 2024, to $71.9 billion (up from $65.2 billion the year prior), MSA numbers show.

Profit before tax came in at $5.11 billion (up microscopically – about one point – from $5.06 billion the year prior). Net income was down by almost 3%. And the segment’s combined insurance service ratio (CISR), a somewhat simplified version of the combined ratio that was introduced by IFRS 17, came in at 97.6%. That figure was a wonder to some given the extreme Cat year.

Meanwhile, commercial carriers (excluding Lloyd’s) experienced a 7.6% increase in insurance revenue, to $20.9 billion ($19.4 billion the year prior).

Insurance service expenses increased from $12.9 billion in 2023 to $15.1 billion in 2024. Year-over-year net income was up minimally, to $2.89 billion ($2.79 billion in 2023).

And, despite the active Cat year, the commercial sector’s CISR came in at 88.3%, with other combined ratios (net and gross) also coming in at comparable levels. This reinforces what Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. data clearly indicates: extreme events almost always hit personal property harder than commercial.

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Reinsurers

Not surprisingly, reinsurers saw an increase in their insurance service expense of 123% and a drop in net income of 52% (from $1.4 billion in 2023 to $501.2 million in 2024). This indicates Canadian insurers can still rely on reinsurance to temper the hit from large loss events.

According to some sources, property Cat reinsurance has been so costly and restrictive in the U.S. that many primary carriers are either buying at higher attachment points (i.e., retaining more risk) than in a softer market or, in some cases, going without.

Indeed, speaking at the National Insurance Conference of Canada in September 2024, Guy Carpenter Canada CEO Peter Askew confirmed reinsurance is expected to cover about half the cost of the big four Cats that hit Canada last summer.

MSA data supports Askew’s observation. The reinsurance impact ratio improved from -6.6 in 2023 to -1.2 in 2024, reflecting increased reinsurance revenue that helped offset catastrophe impacts. Further, the reinsurance service ratio of -94.9 at year-end 2024 indicates highly effective reinsurance coverage for incurred claims.

This article is excerpted from one that appeared in the June-July, 2025 print edition of Canadian Underwriter.