Despite the soft market, some wholesalers are still thinking in terms of growth

With increased capacity and a growing appetite from insurers for risks in commercial property and casualty insurance, competition is being felt among wholesalers, often also acting as managing general agents (MGAs), who serve as underwriting intermediaries within the distribution network. Executives interviewed by Insurance Portal explain their strategies to continue growing their business.

At Soplex Insurance Solutions, business continues to grow, but at a slower pace than in previous years. In January 2026, the wholesaler reported growth of 7.5 per cent compared with January 2025, says its president, Patrick Bouchard.

In the last quarter of 2025, business growth was lower than during the same period in previous years. Competition is intense in all segments where the wholesaler operates, he notes.

In 2022, the wholesaler had seven employees and a premium volume of $11 million. By the end of 2025, it had 43 employees and $66 million in premiums, in Quebec alone.

Over the years, Bouchard has also increased the underwriting capacity entrusted to him by insurers. “Historically, MGAs handled non-standard and specialized risks—that was their bread and butter. Since we started working with Accelerant three years ago, and then with Tokio Marine Canada two years ago, we’ve become a generalist MGA and can take on everything,” he explains.

Business development at Soplex Canada is progressing more slowly. Bouchard hired two underwriters in Alberta who have been based in Halifax since early March 2026 to develop the Atlantic market. Elsewhere in the country, especially in Ontario and Western Canada, Soplex will rely mainly on acquisitions to grow.

“You need underwriters on the ground, especially given the current market conditions,” says Bouchard. “I handle business development, and it’s my mandate to find my counterpart in Ontario and Western Canada to grow Soplex’s business.”

Having built his own underwriting capacity from scratch nearly a decade ago, Bouchard says he learned how difficult it is to obtain underwriting authority from insurers without data to present. “By acquiring an MGA that’s already operating, it becomes easier to integrate new employees and grow our business,” he says.

Assurance Image

A year ago, Gabriel Morneau was vice-president at CHES Special Risk, a position he left in the summer of 2025. Since then, with his colleague Laurence Dubé, they acquired a wholesaler that has been rebranded as Assurance Image. The main difference in his day-to-day work is that part of his activities as an underwriting intermediary now involves personal lines insurance.

“I have to admit, we’re learning the hard way. I had always worked in commercial insurance. We had to go back to the books, consult brokers to educate ourselves and pick up tips,” he says.

“In commercial insurance, you receive files a few weeks before renewal. You try to respond as quickly as possible, but if it takes 24 to 48 hours, that’s normal. For more complex files, it can even take a week or two, with back-and-forth discussions with the broker,” Morneau explains.

In personal lines, when a broker calls a wholesaler, it’s because they’ve been unable to place a client with a standard insurer. “Their client is on the line—they can’t make them wait. They need an answer the same day, or at worst early the next morning,” he adds.

One of the reasons the two partners chose to acquire an existing wholesaler instead of starting a new one was the time required to obtain underwriting authority from Lloyd’s of London. “It takes time to get a binder—between 10 and 18 months depending on the case. We had a head start because we already had one, and we were already licensed with the Autorité des marchés financiers [AMF],” he says.

At the time of the interview with Insurance Portal, just four months after launching Assurance Image, the two owners had to acknowledge they needed help. “We are in the process of hiring three people, even though we thought we would wait until our second year,” he says. Business is particularly strong in personal lines, “both standard and non-standard.”

The firm is hiring to prepare for increased demand in personal property insurance, which coincides with the period when people are looking for a new home or planning to buy property. “Assurance Image is built on accessibility, response time, solutions, speed, and so on. We have no choice but to be ready when the busy season starts,” he says.

Gabriel Morneau spends time presenting his company to brokerage firms, “but there are only 24 hours in a day. I could do more, but I need staff to meet demand. Even if I say I’m ready to launch a Formula 1 car, if I don’t have mechanics to change the tires, it won’t get me very far.” The wholesaler aims to be a generalist, both in property and liability insurance, he adds.

Shortly after his interview with Insurance Portal, his underwriting agency announced the hiring of commercial insurance underwriter Steve Doyle-Aubé, who worked with him for three years at CHES and later at Soplex.

At CHES

In commercial insurance, some risks are still difficult to underwrite, particularly risks related to children. “This is a class of risk our insurers find very challenging—claims are very high, and we simply can’t go there,” notes Virginie Boucher, senior vice-president, Quebec, at CHES Special Risk.

She nonetheless asks brokers to submit their files even if her agency has limited presence in a specific segment. “It allows us to document insurance needs, and eventually, we follow up with our insurers, whether in London or here. If the demand is there, we can develop a new market,” she says.

“I developed one internally last year for fairly specialized professional liability (E&O), because there was a strong need and our insurers had no appetite for it. We decided to develop it. We need to target our markets—we can’t do everything,” Boucher explains.

She observes that there are fewer and fewer segments where the specific features of the Civil Code discourage insurers from writing liability risks in Quebec. “If we have a class of risk that is more difficult due to exposure in Quebec, we try to adapt our offering by adjusting the premium or deductible to provide a solution. When we develop capacity internally, our insurers are aware of Quebec’s specificities,” she says, particularly regarding the duty to defend.

Following CHES’s acquisition by Totalis in 2025, Boucher notes that discussions are ongoing with the new owners to develop new markets. “They are present in segments where we are not. If we launch a new product in Canada, our underwriters must be able to offer it in all provinces,” she says.

She points out that while her agency acts as an intermediary for capacity provided by London insurers, it also has internal capacity through its underwriting authorities. “This allows us to offer brokers solutions that are just as competitive as those from insurers,” she says.

This includes specialized products as well as more standard offerings. “A broker calls us and says, ‘I received an offer from such-and-such insurer with this premium—can you do something?’ The first step is to check whether we have internal capacity, and quite often, the answer is positive,” Boucher adds.