A MULTI-POLICY DISCOUNT is a percentage taken off a premium that has already been calculated. Keeping both policies with one company does not change how the house or car is rated. The reduction is what the insurer spends to keep a household from leaving, and the money comes from the same budget it would use to find a new household.
The house and the car are each priced before any bundle exists. Each premium is calculated on its own inputs, and combining them leaves both policies unchanged, with their own limits and deductibles.
Bundling does not link the two claims files. A laptop taken from a parked car remains a home contents claim, so the home deductible applies even though the theft happened in the car.
How a Home Insurance Rate Is Built
Home insurance rates in Canada are built from a common set of inputs:
That list has no bundling factor.
Splitting the Discount Between Two Policies
Insurers can apply the reduction to the car policy or the house policy. Some companies split it between the two. Either way, the percentage applies to that company’s base rates.
A company can advertise a large discount and still quote a higher combined total than two competitive standalone policies, because its base rate on one of the two was already high.
Compare the combined dollar totals from each company.
Insurers measure a bundle by how long the household stays. 95 per cent of American homeowners who combined their car and house policies renewed the home policy the following year. Among those who had not combined them, 85 per cent renewed. This comparison has been published only in the United States.
The discount is priced against that 10-point gap.
Nearly a third of those same bundlers said they would move the home policy if their car premium went up. Within a single year, they grew much less satisfied with what they paid, while satisfaction among single-policy households barely moved.
Canadian Households With One Insurer
In a 2019 survey, 93 per cent of Canadian policyholders said they would like to buy several policies from one company, and 29 per cent had a majority of their policies in one place. Only 4 to 5 per cent of respondents said an insurer had ever contacted them about additional coverage. Many Canadian companies do not sell every type of policy a household needs, so a household that wants all its policies from one provider often cannot get them.
Every discount percentage circulating in Canada comes from a company that sells the policy or sells the lead, and no independent measurement of the range has been published.
Brokers and policyholders in Ontario say the discount they get comes in well below the advertised maximum. They also report that two companies quoting identical coverage can differ by more than the discount is worth.
Price each policy separately first. Then ask about a combined reduction if one company wins both. A household that asks for the combined price first never learns the standalone premiums, so the discount is measured against a number nobody can check.
Home and auto premiums in Ontario follow different rules, and home premiums have risen faster across Canada for five years.
Different Rules for Home and Auto in Ontario
Home insurance in Ontario is not compulsory, and the regulator does not approve its rates. The regulator licenses insurers and sets standards for how they treat their customers.
Rates for auto insurance in Ontario have to be approved by the province before an insurer can charge them. A household can therefore carry both policies with one company and still see the home premium go up with no notice, months before any auto change is even filed. Between December 2020 and December 2025 homeowners’ premiums rose 38.6 per cent nationally, against 23.9 per cent for vehicle insurance.
The 2024 Catastrophe Year
Insured damage from severe weather in Canada reached $8.55 billion in 2024, the first year above $8 billion. That is nearly triple the 2023 total and roughly 12 times the annual average from 2001 to 2010.
In a little over an hour on August 5, 2024, a hailstorm over Calgary produced $3 billion in insured losses. Canadian insurers recorded net underwriting losses on home insurance in both 2023 and 2024.
Insurers are repricing home coverage around weather losses, and a percentage taken off last year’s rate does not stop this year’s increase.
A house in a repeat-flood or wildfire area usually needs a specialist company, and so does a driver with several at-fault claims. A company that will insure a repeat-flood property at a workable price usually quotes well above market on a clean driver. Around 10 per cent of Canadian households now face flood risk high enough that flood insurance is not available to them at all. Keeping the two policies with different companies is common enough that Ontario brokers set them up that way.
Some home and auto packages include a linked-claim feature, so one deductible applies when a single event damages both the house and the car. Get the wording onto the declaration page before counting on it.
Three provinces run public auto insurance. British Columbia and Saskatchewan sell the mandatory part of car insurance through a provincial Crown corporation, and Manitoba works the same way. The compulsory coverage can only be bought from the Crown, so a private insurer’s multi-policy discount can only touch the optional portion, and it comes off a much smaller premium. As of the early 2010s, between 80 and 90 per cent of drivers there bought the Crown corporation’s optional coverage as well.
Cancel or move one policy and the discount comes off the other one immediately. A mid-term cancellation fee can apply on top of that. The base rate underneath does not come down to compensate. A household that combines two policies and then moves one of them a year later has paid the fee and lost the reduction. Ask, in writing, which policy the reduction comes off and what happens to it if the other one leaves.
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