Are you tired of the rising costs to your home and auto insurance premiums?
The answer is probably “yes” but your insurance company may have a different opinion.
It’s been a remarkable year for Aviva Canada. The country’s second-largest insurer saw operating profits jump by 49% to $761 million according to its 2025 financial results. The increase was driven partly by higher premiums in personal auto and property that were up by 6% to a total of $5.2 billion.
Aviva plc, the British multinational parent company also reported strong results. It reported a 25% increase in operating profit for 2025, reaching $4.1 billion, which capped off five consecutive years of growth.
While Ontarians are told that insurance costs are spiralling out of control due to increased claims, the financial results suggest that those same factors are proving highly manageable—if not lucrative—for the insurer.
Across the province, premiums have climbed to historic highs. According to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA), the average auto insurance premium in Ontario reached approximately $2,164 annually as of October 2025, with significantly higher costs in the GTA, where averages exceed $2,800.
But profitability is not, in itself, a problem. Insurance companies are, after all, in the business of making money. The more interesting question is how those profits are achieved—and what happens when a claim is actually made.
For many personal injury lawyers and their clients, the reality of insurer profitability becomes clearest not in financial statements, but in litigation strategy. One tactic drawing scrutiny is Aviva’s use of offers to dismiss court claims without costs. While superficially reasonable, these offers often operate as pressure tools—asking injured plaintiffs to abandon their claims while leaving insurers with little downside if litigation continues.
Ontario judges have taken notice and in costs decisions have criticized Aviva for employing hardball tactics to dissuade claims. The irony is hard to ignore: rising claims costs are cited to justify premium increases, yet the claims process itself is made more adversarial and difficult to navigate.
That same dynamic is even more pronounced at the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT), where accident benefit disputes are routinely fought rather than resolved. Aviva Canada is among the most active participants in this system.
The results are telling. According to inHEALTH’s 2025 statistical analysis, insurers succeeded in approximately 74% of LAT decisions, while applicants succeeded on all issues in only about 8% of cases—a steep decline from roughly 33% in 2017. To add salt to the wound, injured claimants must fund their own legal costs and cannot recover any of those costs even when successful. For injured claimants, the LAT has become less of a forum for resolution and more of a high-risk battleground.
Concerns about fairness are compounded by conflict-of-interest controversies involving insurer-linked LAT adjudicators. In one widely reported instance, an adjudicator accepted employment with Aviva and continued to hear cases involving the insurer. Similar concerns were raised when another LAT adjudicator accepted employment with Aviva and their online profile cites two decisions that involved Aviva that were rendered not as counsel of record, but as an adjudicator.
The contrast is striking. Insurers report strong profits and improved performance, while also dominating outcomes in the very system meant to adjudicate disputes with injured claimants. All of this unfolds against a familiar backdrop: rising premiums justified by alleged theft, fraud and escalating claims costs.
This is not a system under strain, but one operating with remarkable efficiency.
The question is not whether the system is functioning, but who it is functioning best for.
Note: Financial figures originally reported in British pounds have been converted to Canadian dollars for consistency.
