Auto Insurance

Auto insurance in Canada isn't one national market — in some provinces the basic policy runs through a public insurer, while others operate an open private market. Knowing which applies where you live changes what a broker can actually shop for you. 

In several provinces, basic auto coverage runs through a public insurer, not a private carrier, while others operate an open private market — so the value of an independent broker relationship, and the coverage a household can actually receive, shifts depending on where they live.

HUB's independent brokers work across whichever structure applies in a household's province — placing available supplemental and non-standard coverage where a broker role exists, and clarifying what the public plan already covers, so households aren't shopping for coverage that isn't for sale. In British Columbia, that means connecting households with the right team for ICBC's no-fault system while brokers focus on the supplemental coverage available outside it.

Where a public insurer sets the base policy, a broker's value isn't in shopping that piece — it's in making sure the supplemental coverage around it fits the household.

Households understand which parts of their auto coverage are fixed by their province and which are broker-placed and have the available supplemental protection in place either way.

Standard auto liability limits are often set at a province's minimum or a familiar round number rather than what a household could lose in a serious at-fault accident. 

Auto liability limits and multi-driver programs are often set once, at a province's minimum or at original purchase, and never revisited as new drivers join the household, vehicles change or claims history shifts. In British Columbia, ICBC sets basic liability, so the review that matters most is Collision and Comprehensive against current vehicle values. Liability still comes into play at the provincial border and beyond — where a policy built for BC doesn't automatically travel with the driver. 

An ongoing broker relationship reviews coverage limits and driver programs against who is driving and what they're driving today — liability where it's broker-shoppable, and the comparable coverages where it isn't — using program design, not just price comparison, to close the distance between minimum coverage and real household risk. 

Price comparison alone can't tell a household whether their coverage is enough; that judgment comes from seeing how similar households' claims have actually played out.

Households know their coverage limits and driver programs are set for their current drivers and vehicles, not for whoever was on the policy years ago. 

Handling a major auto claim can be far more complicated than dealing with a minor collision. If the accident is your fault and liability is significant, or if it involves an uninsured or underinsured driver, the process can quickly become difficult to manage. Without a broker relationship, there’s also no dedicated professional to help represent your interests with the insurance carrier. 

Not all auto claims are straightforward. More serious situations—such as at-fault accidents with meaningful liability exposure or claims involving uninsured or underinsured motorists—often require much more guidance than a standard fender-bender. When you don’t have a broker relationship in place, you may be left to handle communications with the carrier on your own after the claim is submitted.

When you have a broker relationship in place, you're not left to manage the claim alone. Your broker steps in as your advocate, pushing the carrier for timely updates, documenting the claim correctly and making sure your interests are represented, not just the carrier's.

The claims that go sideways are rarely the ones where someone documented everything perfectly. They’re the ones where nobody was advocating for the household while the carrier moved at its own pace.

You have an advocate managing a serious claim on your behalf, so you're not navigating the carrier's process alone.

In British Columbia, basic auto coverage is claimed directly through ICBC rather than a private carrier, so this advocacy role applies to Collision, Comprehensive and other privately insured components of a BC policy, not to the ICBC claim itself. 

Picture a busy family: a couple of daily-driver cars, a few licensed teens and maybe a weekend toy like a classic coupe, a motorcycle or an RV. Over time, protection for all of it tends to get stitched together one policy at a time, often from different insurers. The result is a patchwork that leaves certain vehicles without the specialized coverage they call for, while the household forgoes the savings that come from tying auto together with home and umbrella protection under a single program.

A household with multiple vehicles and drivers often assumes standard auto coverage extends to all of it, when several vehicles need their own coverage form. Shopping auto in isolation also means missing the bundling value and annual review that catch gaps early. 

Coordinating every vehicle and driver, including recreational and classic vehicles, under one program with an annual review catches coverage exposures as your vehicles and drivers change and unlocks the bundling value of pairing auto with home and umbrella rather than shopping each vehicle separately. 

Households rarely think of their car, their teen driver’s car and the motorcycle in the garage as one coverage question, but that’s exactly where a coordinated review catches what a fragmented approach misses. 

You have every vehicle and driver covered under one coordinated, annually reviewed program, capturing bundling value and catching gaps that piecemeal, single-vehicle shopping would miss.

In British Columbia, auto renewal isn't tied to a single broker, so this coordinated view depends on keeping your auto policy with the same broker who manages the rest of your program and should be confirmed at each renewal.

In British Columbia, ICBC acts as a secondary payer for loss-of-income coverage, capped at $100,000. something worth reviewing alongside your other policies to see whether that cap leaves a shortfall.