How to get business insurance in Canada
6 minute read Published on Aug 20, 2026 by BrokerLink Communications
If you own a business in Canada, you’ll likely need business insurance. While it’s not legally required in Canada for most businesses, you wouldn’t want to risk losing everything you worked so hard for in the blink of an eye. Not only does business insurance coverage protect your assets, but it can also act as a safeguard for you and your employees in the event of an injury or lawsuit.
But even if you do have to buy commercial insurance to operate legally, there isn’t a single policy that can be considered one-size-fits-all. With that in mind, BrokerLink has prepared a guide breaking down the various types of business insurance available and how to get them. Read on to learn how business insurance actually works and how you can get it.
What is business insurance?
Business insurance is what helps cover costs that would be hard to handle on your own. That might be medical bills after a customer gets hurt in your waiting area or a fire that damages your business and forces you to shut down for weeks.
Instead of paying for all of that yourself, the insurance policy pays part or all of the cost, depending on the type of coverage you bought. There isn’t one single business insurance policy that covers every business. Most businesses end up with a few types of coverage bundled together and what you need comes down to:
What you do
Where you work
Whether customers come to you
Whether you have employees, vehicles or equipment
Take a home-based consultant, for example. They probably don’t face the same business risks as a restaurant that welcomes hundreds of customers every day. And a contractor with a truck and tools would have different concerns than an online retailer shipping products from a warehouse.
Even two businesses in the same industry can need different coverage, just based on how they operate day to day. Insurance in Canada is also shaped by the province you’re in. Things like auto insurance, workers’ compensation and some liability requirements are provincial rules. That’s why business coverage is usually built around both what you do and where you work.
Why do you need business insurance?
Claims don’t always come from headline-level disasters. They actually come more often from everyday experiences where something went wrong, like when:
Someone slips on a wet floor
A pipe leaks overnight
A delivery vehicle gets into a minor collision
A break-in leaves you with missing inventory and equipment
On their own, each one might seem manageable. That is, until you’re looking at the bills for repairs or legal fees while dealing with a loss of income. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, businesses across Canada filed more than $1.7 billion in insurance claims in 2024. While many were from everyday situations, others were from severe weather-related disasters.
Even more recent ice storms, wildfires and hailstorms in 2025 have affected businesses of all sizes, not just big operations. While business insurance can’t stop these things from happening, it can help keep one bad situation from wiping out everything you’ve built.
What are the main types of business insurance in Canada?
Once you start looking at business insurance, you’re soon going to notice that there are a lot of different options. These are the most common ones for business owners:
Commercial general liability insurance
Commercial general liability covers third-party bodily injury and property damage claims from people outside your business. It can help cover their medical expenses or repairs. It can also cover your legal costs. Depending on what you do, this coverage may be required. It’s also commonly requested by lenders, contracts or landlords.
Commercial auto insurance
By law, commercial auto coverage is required in Canada for any vehicle that’s used for business reasons, even if it’s just to drive to clients’ homes. You may also need to carry non-owned auto coverage.
Commercial property insurance
Commercial property covers the physical things your business owns or uses, including any inventory, equipment, furniture, tools and the building itself. If you rent, it usually covers just your contents.
Business interruption insurance
Business interruption helps when an insured loss forces you to slow down or shut down completely. It can help replace your lost income and cover certain ongoing expenses while your business recovers.
Professional liability insurance
Professional liability helps cover claims against negligence, errors or omissions in your work or advice that caused someone a financial loss.
Cyber insurance
Cyber insurance is what can help you with costs tied to data breaches or cyber incidents if your business stores customer information or relies on computer systems.
Directors and officers (D&O) insurance
Directors and officers insurance helps pay legal costs and damages tied to claims about how a company was managed.
How do you get business insurance in Canada?
To buy business insurance, you have to follow a couple of key steps. Whether you need small business insurance for your retail store or contractor insurance for your construction business, this can help you out. Here’s what you need to know:
Start with how your business works
You’re really just thinking about where things could go wrong in a normal week. You’ll want to ask yourself:
What kind of work do you do?
Where do you do it?
Do customers come to you or vice versa?
Do you have employees?
Do you own vehicles or equipment?
Some coverage is required, like commercial auto, if you use a vehicle for work. Other coverage isn’t required, but having it can still make a big difference should you need it.
Talk to a broker or insurer
From there, you can talk to an insurance company or a broker. You can get your own quotes directly from insurance companies, but that usually means doing more of the work on comparing them yourself. A broker can look at options from multiple insurance providers and compare the quotes for you.
Compare what you’re actually getting
After that, it comes down to comparing what you’re actually getting. Two policies can cost about the same and still protect you very differently.
Knowing what the policy covers and just as importantly, what it doesn’t, will make it easier to manage your business insurance properly. This is where it helps to slow down and talk through each quote’s exclusions, deductibles and liability limits with the insurer or broker.
Choose and purchase a policy
When you’re comfortable with the coverage, you can go ahead and purchase the policy. In many cases, your coverage can start right away. You’ll receive your proof of insurance and a copy of the policy. You’ll want to keep those somewhere safe as they’re often needed when you’re signing a lease, a contract or setting up financing.
When should you review and update your commercial insurance policy?
Your insurance shouldn’t stay the same forever. That’s why insurers and brokers recommend you look it over at least once a year or anytime something changes with the business, like if:
You hire new employees
Move to or open another location
Buy new equipment
Experience a big jump in revenue
Even if nothing has changed, while your policy may still be fine, it’s still worth checking. Reviewing it now is always easier than finding out later that something wasn’t covered.
What mistakes do businesses often make when buying insurance?
Most mistakes come from trying to keep costs down or letting insurance coverage stay the same as the business changes. While that’s understandable, it often causes problems when there’s a claim.
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Underinsuring to save money, which can leave coverage running out faster than expected when there’s a real claim.
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Assuming personal insurance covers business use, even though home insurance and personal auto policies usually stop applying once something is used for work.
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Underestimating the value of the business as equipment, inventory and revenue grow over time.
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Skipping over exclusions and limits, only to discover what isn’t covered after something goes wrong.
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Forgetting about cyber risks, even though most businesses now handle customer information digitally.
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Letting policies auto-renew without review, which can leave coverage out of sync with how the business actually operates.
Contact BrokerLink today
It’s often easier to negotiate an insurance package that’s both affordable and tailored to your business when you’re working with a broker who knows business owners. That’s where BrokerLink comes in. As a leading brokerage in Canada, our business insurance brokers can walk through your options and adjust your coverage any time your business changes. What are you waiting for? Connect with a BrokerLink advisor today to get started on your free insurance quote!