Been declined, cancelled or non-renewed? Send us the letter.
A declined risk is not an uninsurable risk. A decline tells you what one insurer will not write, not what the rest of the market will. Sometimes it is no more than an insurer stepping out of your kind of property or business. We read the letter, we tell you honestly whether we can place it, and we say so either way.
Send us your letter See what we placePlacement for risks other brokers have refused or dropped
Anyone declined, cancelled, non-renewed, or quoted a price out of reach
The letter from the insurer, that one document tells us most
Why was my insurance declined or cancelled?
A decline is one insurer’s decision about its own appetite, which is the kind of property and business it is willing to write. Insurers pull out of a whole class, sometimes in a single season, and everyone in that class gets a letter. Wildfire exposure, an older building, a claim on the file, a vacant period, an unusual trade: these move a file from “easy” to “specialist”. Hard to place and uninsurable are not the same thing.
Going without cover is not a saving, it is an exposure. A lender can call a mortgage, a landlord can end a lease, and one uninsured loss can cost more than every premium you have ever paid.
The difference between being stuck and being covered is usually market access: whether your broker can reach the insurers who still write your class. That is the work we do.
What happens after you send it.
You send the letter
The decline, cancellation or non-renewal notice. Whatever the insurer sent you, exactly as they sent it.
We read the reason
The stated reason tells us which markets are worth approaching and which would waste your time.
We tell you where you stand
Whether we can place it, what it is likely to take, and what would make it easier. Including when the answer is no.
We go to market
If it is placeable, we approach the insurers who still write your class, and you deal with one broker throughout.
Two things we can answer right now. Cancelled for non-payment is case by case. We put it in front of a person rather than treating it as an automatic no. And we do place cover for SRO and supportive-housing operators across the Lower Mainland, a class we look at on its own facts, not by category.
If you would rather talk it through than write it out, call the branch nearest you. The lights at the top of this page show who is open right now.
What we place, and what we will look at.
Plenty of brokers say “we can insure anything.” We would rather tell you which is which.
Classes we place regularly
These are risks we handle as ordinary work, not favours, not one-offs.
- Single room occupancy, supportive and social housing
- Non-profit and government-funded housing operators
- Higher-value property
- Recyclers and salvage operations
- Mortgage-impaired and lender-required property
- Higher-risk liability exposures
- Construction and trades with claims history
Bring us the file
We may not have written your exact situation before. We will look at it properly and tell you honestly what we find, without wasting weeks first.
- Vacant and unoccupied buildings
- Wildfire-exposed property
- Businesses with a heavy claims record
- Unusual trades and one-of-a-kind operations
- Public entities and municipalities
- Anything another broker has given up on
How this can play out.
A landlord is non-renewed after two water claims. Three brokers say no without reading the file. The letter shows the losses were from one plumbing fault that was fully repaired, which is exactly the fact a market needs to see.
Why an online quote form said no.
Automated quoting tools are built to accept the simple and reject everything else. A single answer (a past claim, a vacancy, an older roof, an unusual trade) ends the form. That is a software rule, not an underwriting decision. A person can ask the next question. Software cannot.
Software stops at the first “no”
One awkward answer ends the process, with no way to explain the context behind it.
Your file has context
A claim from six years ago that has since been fixed reads very differently to a human underwriter.
Specialist markets aren’t online
The insurers who write difficult classes work through brokers, not through public quote forms.
What people ask us after a decline.
Does being declined once make it harder to get insurance later?
It is a question you will be asked, so it should be answered honestly, but on its own it is not a barrier. What matters far more is the reason behind it and what has changed since. Tell us the whole history; surprises later are what cause real problems.
My insurer non-renewed me but I have never made a claim. Why?
A non-renewal is not always about your record. Insurers withdraw from entire classes of property or business, and everyone in that class receives a notice regardless of their record. If that is what happened here, a clean record is an asset when we take the file to specialist markets.
How quickly do I need to act after a cancellation notice?
Straight away. A cancellation notice has a date on it, and a gap in coverage causes problems far beyond the gap itself, lenders, contracts and future insurers all ask about it. Send us the letter as soon as you have it.
My mortgage lender says I need coverage in place. Can you help?
Yes. Lender-required and mortgage-impaired property is a class we place regularly. Send us the letter from the lender along with the insurance notice.
Will it cost more than my old policy?
Often, yes. Specialist markets price for the risk they are taking. We will not put a number on your file before a market has looked at it, because any number before that is a guess. What we will do is show you every quote that comes back, tell you what is driving the price, and tell you what would bring it down, whether that is a repair, an inspection, an alarm or a change to the deductible.
What if you cannot place it either?
Then we say so, and we say it early. We will tell you what would need to change to make the risk placeable, sometimes that is a repair, an inspection, or a document. A straight no with a reason is more useful than three weeks of silence.
What people usually look at next.
Send us the letter. A decline is where our work starts.
Attach the decline, cancellation or non-renewal notice. That is enough for us to tell you where you stand.
A BROKER READS IT · YOU GET A STRAIGHT ANSWER, EVEN WHEN IT IS NO
Own acreage, a hobby farm or a horse property? See Farm & acreage, a home policy stops short of the barn.
Building something? Builders risk covers the project itself. Your liability policy is there for harm you do to other people and their property, and your own half built structure is not other people’s property. The building going up and the materials sitting on site waiting to go in are what builders risk is written to cover. If you are not sure which of the two you are missing, send us what you have and we will tell you.
Building non-renewed? Strata & property managers is one of the classes we place.
Try the free risk snapshot. A few quick questions shaped to your exact situation, no name, no email, and you get a plain list of what you are actually exposed to. Or see how we work.
Declined for a reason we know by name.
The declines below are the patterns with a known way back. If yours is one of them, start on its page. If it is not, send the letter anyway.