How Alberta brokers, insurers feel about ‘Care First’ model 

Alberta’s brokers and auto insurers hope a top-notch benefits package under the province’s proposed new ‘Care First’ model will reduce the need for drivers to take insurers to court.  

Alberta provided new details about its proposed Care First auto insurance reform in an intentions paper last week. The Care First system is anticipated to come into force on Jan. 1, 2027. 

The intentions paper spells out limited opportunities for Albertans to sue at-fault drivers and their insurers under the proposed new model. Those cases are:

• For pain and suffering where the at-fault driver is convicted of a driving or murder-related offence under the Criminal Code or convicted of impaired driving or failing to stop for a peace officer under the Traffic Safety Act. 

• For out-of-pocket expenses exceeding benefit limits provided by their auto insurance policy, which are not otherwise covered by Care First. 

The province also outlined its intention to introduce of a new tribunal system allowing Albertans to dispute their auto insurers’ benefit decisions. 

“When you have a new auto system like this, where so many parties are involved, to make sure that you get the right outcome, you need some sort of mechanism like this tribunal [to] help with that dispute resolution,” says Caleb Maksymchuk, past-president and board chair at Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta. “We feel that this is going to help avoid some cost of litigation.” 

The Automobile Insurance Rate Board released their 2025 Annual Review Notice on June 17, which found the average cost of a bodily injury claim in 2024 was almost $180,000 — far more than the average claim amount ($8,300 in 2024) for property damage. 

The province reports the single largest cost driver in Alberta’s auto insurance system is litigation expenses from bodily injury claims, which make up around 30% of bodily injury claim costs. 

The broker association is hopeful that premiums will stabilize once the core litigation costs are removed from the system. 

“There is a great focus on Albertans to be able to get recovered and back to the position they were prior [to a collision], in the fastest way possible. Because at the end of the day, if you’re in an accident, you just want to feel better — and that’s the goal here,” says Maksymchuk. 

“You don’t want to have to wait for a sum of money that takes two, three, four or five years in court and then just to see those that help litigate it take a good portion of that out of your pockets,” he says. “This should hopefully remove those support costs out of the system, and  make it more affordable and find more stability within the insurance auto insurance system.” 

However, the government has yet to decide how often Albertans can access the dispute resolution mechanism. 

“We’re still waiting for details of exactly what this Care-based model is going to look like, but if they design [it] right, going to dispute resolution table will likely be the exception, not the rule,” says Aaron Sutherland, Insurance Bureau of Canada’s western and pacific region vice president.  

Government must also still determine how much Albertans will save in premiums once the new Care First model is launched.  

IBC says Albertans will wind up having the greatest amount of court access of all the Care-based systems in Canada. It’s unclear yet how those claims costs will translate to premiums.  

“You’re going to continue to be able to sue if a driver that hit you was guilty of Criminal Code [or] specific Traffic Safety Act violations…And so, there will be a premium cost associated with the court access that remains in the system,” says Sutherland. 

[Alberta] wants to see the best opportunity to improve affordability in the new model,” he says. “And so really, we would suggest the government look to mirror a province like Manitoba’s system much more closely, by removing all litigation from the system and really fully focusing on care, as that province does.”