Canadian P&C brokers highlight priorities for 2026

Talent acquisition and natural catastrophes are among some of the biggest challenges facing Canadian property and casualty (P&C) insurance brokers heading into the new year, says the president of the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada Brett McGregor.

Canadian Underwriter talked to McGregor, the president and CEO of Guild Insurance Group, about IBAC’s priorities as the industry heads into 2026.

McGregor notes he will be upholding IBAC’s historical mandate to educate the public about the value of the P&C insurance broker profession and the broker distribution system. This typically involves themed public education campaigns.

This year, IBAC has designed two public education campaigns to promote the value of brokers while highlighting both the talent recruitment and Nat Cat issues.

One promotes the role and value of P&C insurance brokers through the association’s Broker Identity Program (the Bipper program). That includes one media spot with a ‘what works best?’ theme.

“The idea is to show the world doesn’t work without insurance [and that] insurance works best with an insurance broker,” McGregor tells CU. “I think it’s been a really good advertising campaign, because it does really highlight for consumers and politicians that, really, everything would shut down if the insurance industry shut down.”

For example, the TV advertisements use concrete imagery to illustrate the abstract idea of a world not working without insurance, as McGregor notes, “We have some neat advertisements out there right now of a refrigerator and the foods disappearing from the refrigerator.”  

Another part of IBAC’s mission statement is to “ensure a vibrant and sustainable broker distribution channel.” Industry workplace studies over the past decade have pointed to the need to recruit brokers and other P&C professionals into the industry. IBAC’s current ad campaign also taps into this recruitment narrative.

“The thing I like about our campaign is that it also pivots well into the recruitment campaign,” McGregor tells CU. “It’s not only, ‘the world doesn’t work without insurance,’ but it’s also, ‘insurance works best with you.’  So it kind of has a nice tie into the industry recruitment campaign we’re doing now.”

McGregor notes a second pillar of IBAC’s mandate is to foster good relations with the federal government and the public.

To this end, a second media campaign ties in with IBAC’s efforts to advocate to politicians on behalf of consumers and the industry regarding natural catastrophes and climate change issues.

In particular, IBAC has been urging the federal government to implement its National Flood Program (promised in Budget 2024) and a federal government earthquake backstop, which the industry has argued would make quake coverage more accessible to Canadians.

Brokers increasingly see climate resilience as a major challenge facing the broker channel, according to CU’s 2025 National Broker Survey, conducted last January. Fifty-one percent of more than 200 brokers cited natural catastrophes as their top challenge.

“I think it’s becoming harder and harder to be a broker with the climate change issues and natural catastrophes we’re having,” McGregor confirms. “It used to be sort of a once-in-a-career thing, when you would have a major disaster that you would deal with as a broker. Now, it feels like it’s once every few years. And for some unlucky brokers, it’s almost an annual event. I think that’s a big challenge for the industry.”

McGregor notes brokers in 2026 will be continuing their efforts to educate politicians about how a federal government financial backstop for NatCat risks can help make coverage more affordable and available for Canadians.

A backstop would effectively transfer some Nat Cat exposure away from the private insurance industry, allowing them to lower their rates for the coverage.

Broker certification

McGregor said IBAC is also doing work on broker education and digital readiness.

For example, most brokers in Canada will see the launch in 2026 of a revised Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker (CAIB) certification program, he tells CU. B.C. has been piloting the refreshed CAIB program since the fall. 

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“On the professional development side, I’m really excited we have the CAIB program redeveloped and launched,” he says. “I think it’s been about 20 years since that content was updated. It’s been completely refreshed. There will now be online study options and ebooks and still a traditional textbook if students want that.

“There’s also a process in place now to update that program annually.”

B.C. is the first province to launch the new CAIB program with 45 students, and then the rest of the provinces will follow in 2026.

AI readiness

And in terms of preparing brokers for rapid digital change, IBAC has prioritized getting ahead of the curve on artificial intelligence implementation.

“We have an AI working group set up,” McGregor reports. “It has members of the industry from insurance companies, brokers, BMS [broker management systems] vendors, and insurtech vendors. The goal is to provide some guidance to brokers on how they might incorporate AI into their operations, some use cases, and then also some information on the ethical use of AI and AI policies.

“That’s a new area for IBAC to go into. We’ll be issuing some more white papers [on the use of AI], which I think is good.”

Born in the industry

For McGregor, spearheading these national broker initiatives gave him a broader perspective on what Canadian brokers are facing today. He said he’s learned much about the national perspective after growing up in one of the P&C insurance industry heartlands.

“I’m born and raised in Wawanesa, Manitoba, home of Wawanesa Insurance,” he tells CU when asked about his start in the P&C industry. “My dad had a 40-year career with them, and he was a VP with them for a lot of that time. So I was around the industry for my entire life.”

McGregor worked in — and with — Wawanesa as a high school student. After graduating from university, he exercised an option with Wawanesa to move to Calgary to work as an auto underwriter. But he wound up heeding an inner calling to move back closer to home.

“I wanted to be a small town guy, and wanted to be back around home, so I took that opportunity to move back to Wawanesa and applied at the brokerages in Brandon, Manitoba,” says McGregor, who joined the Insurance Brokers Association of Manitoba in 2014. “And I just completely lucked out on the first interview. We had a two-hour chat, and I walked out of there and just knew that’s where I wanted to be. So yeah, I landed in the right spot right off the bat.”