Canadians should not be paying as much as they do for insurance

Aviva’s Canadian operations were far from the golden child when the company’s full-year financial results came out on March 07. While the group’s operating profits rose to £3,116 million (around CA$5.51 billion) from the previous year, they remained the same year-to-year in Canada at £46 million (around CA$81.4 million) – leaving Canada the odd man out as one of only two major markets that didn’t deliver strong growth. At the same time, normalized COR for the group increased to 98.8% from 97.8%, with Aviva Canada experiencing a rise from 100.7% to 103.4%, thanks to a year of adverse claims. The year was a continuation of what Aviva Canada saw in the second half of 2017, with the high costs of collision damage, bodily injury, and accident benefits in auto weighing heavily on the balance sheet. Another year of catastrophes didn’t help the situation either with catastrophe losses in 2018 coming in at $134 million, about $35 million higher than Aviva’s long-term average, albeit similar to what Aviva Canada saw in 2017.