FSRA updates minimum capital test guidance for P&C insurers in Ontario

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) is releasing an updated version of its minimum capital test guideline for P&C insurance companies and reciprocals incorporated in Ontario.

The updated minimum capital test guideline – which replaces the Financial Services Commission of Ontario’s 2019 MCT guideline – helps ensure that insurers in Ontario are financially sound and can fulfil their commitments to their clients.

It was noted that for the updated guideline, FSRA adopted the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ (OSFI) 2023 minimum capital test guideline. This was to ensure consistency with other provincial regulators and supervisors in Canada, as well as to outline international best practices. According to FSRA, it and other impacted stakeholders were engaged with OSFI and had actively participated in the public consultation for the 2023 minimum capital test guideline.

FSRA’s updated guideline will be effective next year, January 1, 2023. The regulator added in a release that it remains open to comments on the guidance and will consider updating it further as necessary.

More details on the capital test guideline can be found on FSRA’s website.

The FSRA also recently announced that it had issued orders which imposed administrative penalties on three former agents for defrauding international students. The three misused the personal information collected from students to apply for life insurance policies without their clients’ knowledge or consent, and had even claimed to their victims that the insurance was a mandatory condition for employment.