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This overview highlights recent federal and provincial insurance regulatory developments including OSFI’s evolving prudential guidance, CCIR’s distribution channel supervision priorities, British Columbia’s proposed restricted licensing framework for incidental sales, and Québec’s AMF compliance expectations. Insurers and affected insurance intermediaries will want to consider implementation timelines, control frameworks, and areas where policy, contracting and oversight practices may need to be refreshed.
OSFI: Consultation on a new Credit Risk Management Guideline
At the federal level, OSFI launched a consultation on Jan. 29, 2026, on a new Credit Risk Management Guideline that would apply to banks, trust and loan companies, life insurers, and P&C insurers. The project is intended to consolidate and modernize existing credit-risk expectations, including in areas such as real estate secured lending, wholesale credit, non-bank financial intermediation, and counterparty credit risk. The consultation is scheduled to close on July 29, 2026.
Although still in consultation, this initiative is material because it signals where OSFI expects to reduce fragmentation in its guidance, and where insurance groups with meaningful credit exposures should expect policy attention in 2026.
CCIR: Distribution-channel supervision remains a national conduct priority
Also at the extra-provincial level, the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators released a report in January on its cooperative review of insurers’ monitoring and supervision of their distribution channels. This is a strong signal that channel oversight, intermediary controls, and fair treatment of customers remain pan-Canadian marketconduct priorities in 2026.
The Insurance Council of British Columbia’s consultation on restricted insurance agent licences
British Columbia is moving ahead with a new licensing regime for businesses that sell insurance incidentally to their primary products. Introduced in December 2025 and set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027, the Restricted Insurance Agent Licence Regulation will allow certain non insurance businesses to obtain a restricted insurance agency (RIA) licence.
The Insurance Council of British Columbia launched a public consultation on Feb. 10, 2026, on proposed rule amendments addressing definitions, licensing and application requirements, ongoing compliance obligations, fees, and transition rules.
The consultation closes on April 27, 2026, after which the proposed rules will be submitted to the minister of Finance for approval.
Two recent BLG Insights explore this topic in more depth:
- The wait is (still not) over: British Columbia introduces new restricted licence regime for incidental sales of insurance for January 2027 (December 2025)
- Next phase, same timeline: Insurance Council of British Columbia’s consultation on Restricted Insurance Agent Regulation (February 2026)
Québec compliance updates from the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF)
The March 2026 edition of the AMF’s Info Conformité newsletter reiterates the Québec regulator’s expectations regarding compliance and governance while highlighting several recent initiatives affecting financial sector professionals.
The bulletin notes the new enforcement section on the AMF’s website, which centralizes information on inspections, investigations, and prosecution activities in order to improve transparency and encourage preventive compliance practices among regulated entities.
The bulletin also addresses common compliance risks observed during recent supervisory activities. Following a remote inspection focused on social media use, the AMF reminds firms that advertising, representations, and solicitation remain subject to the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services, regardless of the communication medium. Firms are expected to implement effective controls governing social media use and to rely on existing AMF guidance to reinforce their culture of compliance; see the regulator's Governance and Compliance Guide (2021) and Representations Guide (2022).
In addition, the March 2026 edition of Info-Conformité highlights new and upcoming regulatory expectations, including the publication of the Third Party Risk Management Guideline (in French only), which will apply to certain authorized financial institutions, including insurers, as of April 1, 2027.
This new guideline is not fully harmonized with OSFI’s Guideline B-10 on Third-Party Risk Management. In particular, the Québec guideline requires financial institutions to maintain registers of all agreements entered into with third parties, and to ensure that these registers are kept up to date at all times. The registers will have to include key elements enabling the identification of interrelationships between the various agreements. In addition, the Québec guideline expressly requires the establishment of a centralized register for critical agreements.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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