Canadian Insurance Brokerages
The opportunities to seize in 2026-2027
We surveyed insurance decision-makers to gather their insights on the opportunities brokerages can seize in the current fast-moving market.
Jeremy Corbet, Founder
Overview
While the insurance industry is going through tough waters, the soft market offers some significant opportunities for brokerages to maintain and even grow their market shares.
Here is our top 3 opportunities.
#1: The Market
Market Opportunity #1: Client retention
a) Strengthen the relationship with clients
Many leaders want to seize the opportunity of strengthening the relationship with their clients by renegotiating terms with insurers – either by maintaining the same level of coverage, but decreasing price, or increasing the coverage level at similar premium levels.
In the short term it might seem like a loss, but in long-term this pays off. If you don’t do it, you might lose the client anyway.
Insurance is a long-term game: renewing a book every year not only is a steady revenue stream but is also a platform for growth thanks to cross-and-up selling. A 1-million book generating $150,000 in year 1 can be generating $230,000 10 years later due to the compound effect. Beyond the cross-and-up-selling opportunities, a maintained book will grow by itself once the market turns hard again.
“The brokers that are going to focus on client relationship are going to win the battle.”
b) Educate clients on the market cycle and risk management
The end client is not necessarily aware of the market fluctuations and what’s causing them. Educating clients on these can help building a long-term strategy with them and have a different approach to how to insure their risks.
Educating the clients can also be on how to alleviate risk, share best practices or assess risk differently.
Market Opportunity #2: New business
In a soft market, insurers have more appetite and can provide more solutions for the end clients. This is an incredible time for Producers to convert the prospects they couldn’t get until now into clients for which they can build a tailored solution or offer significant discounted rates.
New risks, new opportunities – Emerging risks such as Cyber or risks related to the geopolitical situation are not yet well understood by clients and even some brokers. Many policies need to be adjusted (construction, wholesale, transportation, etc.). There is a tremendous opportunity for local brokerages to fill that gap in the market which will be filled by international brokerages otherwise.
Market Opportunity #3: Build up strong relationships with insurers and prepare for the hard market
If you understand that the insurance market works in cycles, then you can strategically work on your relationship with insurers.
Given the insurers’ appetite remains high in 2026, you can work in sync with them to help them grow market shares and strengthen the relationships that will be useful when the market hardens up.
#2: Artificial Intelligence
First, let’s address the elephant in the room: will AI replace insurance brokers in the coming years?
AI Opportunity #1: AI can paradoxically help brokers building relationships
AI is going to enhance the role of the broker. By doing the most clerical tasks, AI frees up some time for brokers to focus on the client relationship, which is critical for both client retention and acquisition. At Hello World Recruitment, we believe that the more AI is going to be present in our lives, the more people are going to need to connect with others and have real-life interactions. Hence why, insurance brokerage leaders have a huge opportunity to seize, which is focusing on automating the clerical part of the job and free up as much time as possible for their brokers to build and nurture relationships with clients.
AI Opportunity #2: AI can help address the talent shortage
Canadian Insurance Brokerages have been facing skills shortage for years. Our 2026-2027 survey revealed that 85.7% of leaders believe that replacing the retiring workforce is one of the toughest challenges of the coming years.
But AI represents an opportunity for leaders in the field to optimize their resources and maximize their team’s productivity.
Brokerages using AI will be doing more with less available resources lowering the pressure on currently understaffed teams. AI can also free up some resources that can be allocated to the training of the new generation of brokers.
#3 Talent opportunities
Talent Opportunity #1: Attracting experienced brokers
The current market is pulling insurance brokerages’ profits down, making it an opportunity for audacious brokerages.
-> Due to some financial challenges, some brokerages have to let people go. This is an unique opportunity for opportunistic brokerages to attract these experienced brokers.
-> Some other brokerages cannot afford to provide a bonus or salary increases in 2026-2027, creating frustrations for brokers in a hyper inflated economy. Some brokers decide to leave by themselves and look for other options in the market.
2026-2027 give the most resilient brokerages the opportunity to hire some of the best talents out there. The challenge with this caliber of experienced brokers: the best ones do not apply for a job ad. Hence why, to get a hold of the best brokers, your company needs a mix of inbound and outbound strategy.
1) a talent marketing strategy so the best brokers reach out to you and not your competition (inbound)
2) a headhunting plan in order to stay on top of both active and passive candidates (outbound)
In fact, at Hello World Recruitment, we have supported some of our brokerage partners to fill up their team lately and take advantage of the soft market. If you want to attract the best talent, but you haven’t got this inbound-outbound capability: check the below section.
Talent Opportunity #2: The grey matter opportunity
One of the biggest opportunities: invest in the new generation.
a) Rebuilding the intergenerational learning continuum
Given mentors and skilled brokers are retiring, it’s important to extract their skills and transfer them to the new generation of brokers. The brokerages that are going to be able to maximize this process will win a battle in the talent competition.
How?
-> By building up strong training programs or creating collaborative work environments.
b) The AI-enhanced talent opportunity
The new generation of brokers comes with a higher tech adoption capability. The broker of the future will be an enhanced broker that will work within an AI ecosystem allowing them to be extremely efficient : reducing the time spent on non-value-adding tasks and focusing on the client relationship.
AI will help the deploy new capabilities through AI agents such as marketing sales outreach.
This is a whole new category of brokers that’s rising. The opportunity lies in nurturing this by providing the tools and training brokers on using them.
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