This study estimates and compares the average cost of personal passenger automobile insurance premiums in each of the 10 Canadian provinces for the year 2007. Six provinces (Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador) have private competitive insurance industries that provide auto insurance for their populations in a regulated market environment. Three provinces (British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) each have a government-owned automobile insurer that has a monopoly over the provision of basic auto insurance and also competes for the sale of optional insurance coverage with private companies. Government insurers in these three provinces occupy between 95 and 98 percent of market share (Skinner, 2006). One province (Quebec) has a government insurer with a monopoly over basic auto insurance, but which does not compete with the private sector for the sale of optional insurance coverage and therefore occupies a much smaller market share than government insurers in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, or Manitoba.
It is important to compare the cost of auto insurance among the provinces to verify the validity of published claims that provinces with government auto insurers produce lower premiums for drivers than provinces that rely on private sector competition for the delivery of auto insurance (CAC, 2003).