Canada’s MGA market rewards two very different playbooks: consolidate a string of specialist brands under one national platform, or go deep on a single niche and defend it for decades. The list below uses scale as the sorting principle, from coast-to-coast platforms built through acquisition to underwriters that have owned one specialty since before most of their brokers were born. Here are ten of the biggest MGAs doing business in Canada and how they got there.
SPG Canada has spent the past two years consolidating seven previously separate MGAs, Cansure, Totten Insurance Group, Beacon, i3 Underwriting, Anderson McTague, Avro and auto specialist Mode Insurance Services, onto a single national platform run from head offices in Vancouver and Toronto. Cansure alone is recognised as Canada’s largest construction insurer and the group has kept adding capability, from Avro’s aviation book in January 2026 to Mode’s move into auto in December 2025.
Burns & Wilcox Canada is the Canadian arm of the Kaufman family’s global wholesale insurance network, in the country since 2012 and now running seven offices from Vancouver to St. John’s across six provinces. It places business across commercial, professional and personal lines, spanning specialties from cannabis and cyber to marine and management liability, both directly with Canadian carriers and through Lloyd’s of London.
Victor Canada, formerly ENCON, has been placing professional liability, D&O and construction cover through brokers since 1962 and is now backed by Marsh McLennan’s global Victor network. It runs from a head office in Ottawa with additional presence in Mississauga and Edmonton and has picked up multiple Insurance Business Canada 5-Star awards across construction, professional liability, D&O and cyber.
Agile Underwriting Solutions has operated in Canada since 1995 and unified three previously separate MGAs, Agile, Guardian Risk Managers and Exhale Insurance, under one brand in 2022. It now runs from offices in Dartmouth, Calgary and Surrey organised into four national service regions and won MGA of the Year in the 50+ employee category at the 2025 Insurance Business Canada Awards.
CHES Special Risk has built one of the broadest specialty portfolios in Canada, with 300+ products spanning jewellers, student rentals and Canada’s first Shariah-compliant commercial insurance line, from offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton, Quebec City and Montreal. Totalis Program Underwriters, backed by NFP, acquired CHES in February 2025 and it has been named one of Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employers for six consecutive years running.
APRIL Canada is the Canadian wholesale arm of France’s APRIL Group, now backed by KKR, running from offices in Toronto and Montreal with a dedicated marine underwriting unit. It covers a genuinely broad book, from commercial and personal marine to realty, contractors and professional lines and was named MGA of the Year at the Insurance Business Canada Awards.
Premier has insured Canadians for more than 35 years and, since 2015, has operated as part of Co-operators Group while keeping its own management and brand. It now runs six offices from Vancouver to Laval, Quebec, administers more than 150,000 policies through thousands of broker relationships and is Canada’s largest pleasure-craft and yacht insurer, alongside a growing commercial marine, property and specialty personal lines book.
Trinity is focused on the Canadian startup and SME market, and it regularly develops new products to cover emerging risks and technologies, such as its recently launched fintech insurance. The company also places huge importance on educating its broker network on new sectors’ risks so they can advise clients as effectively as possible.
Special Risk Insurance Manager (SRIM)
Special Risk Insurance Managers built its specialty book, sports and entertainment, commercial and niche program business, through a series of mergers going back three decades and has been part of Brown & Brown’s National Programs division since 2020. It runs from a Langley, BC head office with presence across British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia and was named MGA of the Year at the 2018 Insurance Business Canada Awards.
SUM Insurance (Strategic Underwriting Managers) has built Canada’s cannabis insurance market since insuring the country’s first licensed medical marijuana supplier in 2003 and is now the country’s largest cannabis-segment underwriter, covering everything from producers and clinics to R&D, cosmetics and hemp products. It also writes professional liability and blockchain/cryptocurrency risk from offices in Toronto, Montreal and Lachine and has operated as part of One80 Intermediaries, now part of Brown & Brown, Inc. (NYSE: BRO), since an August 2025 sale.
Constant innovation is critical for an MGA and it’s only possible with the right mid- and back-office systems behind it, systems that drive operational efficiency, reduce manual admin and give real visibility into the business.
Insly is built as low-risk insurance software: a modular platform that covers the entire insurance lifecycle and integrates with your existing software and systems, so MGAs can innovate quickly without the financial risk of a costly, drawn-out rebuild. Nora, Insly’s AI layer, removes manual work from submissions, underwriting and claims on top of that foundation
We work with 70+ MGAs and insurers and on average our customers handle double the gross written premium they managed on their previous systems.
