Around seven million Canadians now participate in the gig economy. More than half of them also hold a full-time job. And most of them are underinsured or uninsured – not because they don't value coverage, but because the industry has been solving the wrong problem.
That is the argument from Nigel Branker (pictured), chief executive officer of Securian Canada, whose company has spent two years researching the financial vulnerability of gig workers across the country.
"I don't think education is the answer," Branker said. "I don't think it's that people don't understand or appreciate insurance. It's that they have competing priorities."
That distinction matters. The insurance industry's default response to protection gaps has long been awareness campaigns and financial literacy initiatives. Branker is saying that framing misreads the situation entirely. Gig workers know they need coverage. They are choosing not to buy it because they are saving for a down payment, planning a wedding or trying to make rent – and an insurance premium does not win that competition.
What has changed is how central gig income has become to those decisions. Securian Canada's research found that gig income as a share of total earnings for gig workers jumped from roughly 15% in 2024 to 38% in 2025. Gig work is no longer a side hustle for millions of Canadians – it is a near-primary income source. And the protections available to them have not kept pace with that shift.
For workers increasingly dependent on gig income, that shift carries real consequences. Unlike salaried employees, gig workers have no sick days, no workplace benefits and no employer covering part of their premiums. A serious illness or injury does not just affect their health – it cuts off the income stream they have come to rely on, often with no safety net between them and financial hardship.
"Around 7 million Canadians, or about 1 in 5 Canadians, participated in the gig economy," Branker said. "More than half of them actually had a full-time job."
That second point cuts against the dominant image of who gig workers are. Most people, when they hear the term, picture rideshare drivers and food delivery couriers. Branker said that picture is wrong.
"If you say to many people, gig economy, they think about things like rideshare and food delivery services," he said. "But those stereotypes are actually only about 10% of the gig economy."
The real gig economy is the accountant picking up freelance contracts on evenings, the tradesperson taking private jobs between employer shifts, the writer stringing together assignments between staff roles. People with variable income, unstable hours and no access to employer-sponsored benefits – and no insurance product built around how they actually earn money.
That is the gap Branker wants the industry to address.
"It's easy to do a disability product as a percent of salary," he said. "But if someone's salary is very fluctuating or their sources of income are fluctuating, how do we create products that protect some aspect of their day-to-day life?"
The answer, in his view, requires more than product innovation. It requires a different posture from the industry entirely.
"It's incumbent on us and the insurance industry to meet people where they are, to think differently about the types of products we make available, to think about how we use technology to increase access and remove barriers," Branker said.
Beyond insurers, he said the problem is structural enough to require collaboration across sectors.
"More existentially, I think it requires more collaboration between insurers and employers and policymakers," he said. "How do we think differently about expanding our social security net as well?"
That last point is the one the industry is least equipped to act on alone. But Branker's broader argument is that waiting for a structural solution is not an excuse for inaction on the product side. The 7 million Canadians doing gig work are not going away. The share of their income coming from that work is growing. And the industry's current answer – better education, clearer messaging – is not meeting them where they are.
