Alberta trucking fleets insured through Facility Association, the industry’s insurer of last resort, are facing a 28.23% rate increase for interurban commercial vehicles.
The increase took effect March 1, 2026, for new policies and April 1 for renewals. Interurban vehicles generally include long-haul and regional trucking operations that travel between municipalities.
Facility Association (FA) is Canada’s residual auto insurance market, providing coverage for drivers and fleets unable to obtain insurance in the voluntary market. Every insurer licensed to write automobile insurance in a province must participate in the pool, with premiums, claims, and expenses shared based on market share.
The rate change arrives as FA’s footprint in Alberta has grown considerably. According to data from the Alberta Insurance Rate Board, the residual market now represents 10.3% of the province’s commercial auto insurance market, up from 3.9% in 2017.
Samuel Elkins, founder and executive chairman of Strategic HSE Systems, said Alberta’s role in that growth spans nearly a decade and raises serious concerns.
“Alberta has been the epicenter of Facility Association’s commercial vehicle growth for nearly a decade,” he told Truck News. “That’s concerning for what’s supposed to be the insurer of last resort.”
Several factors have driven the deterioration. Alberta operates under a tort-based legal system with no cap on non-minor injury claims, producing larger settlements and longer claim timelines.
Between 2017 and 2022, commercial trucking claim costs nearly doubled, rising from approximately $150 million to $274 million.
Alberta auto insurers lost $1.2 billion in 2024, paying out roughly 18% more in claims than they collected in premiums, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Three carriers have since exited the province entirely.
Past driver training shortfalls have compounded the problem. Alberta’s previous mandatory entry-level training program required roughly 120 hours of instruction – significantly less than provinces such as Quebec. The province replaced it in April 2025 with a new Class 1 Learning Pathway, but Elkins noted that consequences continue to surface.
“The damage from years of underprepared graduates entering the industry is still showing up in claims data,” Elkins said.
The FA rate increase comes amid sweeping legislative changes that have yet to take effect. The Alberta government passed Bill 47, the Automobile Insurance Act, on May 15, 2025, establishing a framework for a “care-first” system that would move the majority of injury claims out of the courts and into a direct benefits model administered by private insurers. The legislation is scheduled to come into force Jan. 1, 2027.
Under the care-first model, insurers would provide medical and rehabilitation benefits, as well as income replacement, to those injured in collisions, regardless of fault, according to the Alberta government.
A 2023 report by accounting firm MNP found that collision-related lawsuits in the province rose 48% between 2018 and 2022, with litigation costs exceeding $1.2 billion. These costs were ultimately passed on to consumers through higher premiums.
However, the legislation’s future is far from certain. At the United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting in Edmonton at the end of November 2025, a resolution to repeal care-first received approximately 75% support on the convention floor. While such resolutions are not binding, the Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association called the vote an unmistakable signal from the government’s own membership.
“It is telling for a governing party to see a flagship policy so resoundingly repudiated by its own membership,” ACTLA chair Jillian Gamez said in a statement. “This reflects a significant lack of confidence in the direction charted by the Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance.”
CBC News reported that finance minister Nate Horner acknowledged the strain on the existing system at the convention, noting that consumer choices were already disappearing.
“After multiple years of caps and our attempts to bring affordability to the system in the short term, the pressure in the system is real,” Horner said.
