Navacord has announced a partnership with Steers Insurance Limited, marking its expansion into Newfoundland and Labrador and giving the brokerage a complete coast-to-coast presence across Canada.
Headquartered in Newfoundland and Labrador with operations in Nova Scotia, Steers Insurance is one of Atlantic Canada's leading property and casualty brokerages, serving clients across the region with more than 100 employees and over $110 million in gross written premium.
Shawn DeSantis, president and CEO of Navacord, said the announcement was an important milestone as the company expands into a new province and continues building its presence in Eastern Canada.
Steers Insurance traces its history to the Steers organization, dating back to the 1800s, and has operated under the Steers name for decades, growing into one of Atlantic Canada's premier independent brokerages with recognized expertise in commercial insurance and longstanding relationships with Lloyd's of London and other leading markets.
T. Marshall Sadd, executive chairman of Navacord, said Steers had built an outstanding reputation through client service, technical expertise and strong relationships across the Atlantic region.
"Jason, Jeff, Brian and their team embody the entrepreneurial spirit that defines Navacord, and we are proud to welcome them," Sadd said.
As part of the transaction, a number of Steers Insurance colleagues will become shareholders in Navacord, a structure the company said reinforces its commitment to preserving local leadership while aligning partners through shared ownership and long-term growth.
Jason Sharpe and Jeff Sharpe, principals of Steers Insurance, pointed to Navacord's national footprint and specialty capabilities as key reasons for the deal.
"As a partner who shares our long-term vision, values independence and invests in its people, Navacord was the right fit for our team, our clients and the future of our business," they said.
The shareholder structure behind the Steers deal reflects a dynamic reshaping the wider Canadian brokerage market. Ron Stokes, financial services strategy and transactions leader at EY-Parthenon, said in January 2026 that consolidation in Canada's brokerage sector was expected to persist and potentially accelerate through the year, driven by platforms realizing operational efficiencies through shared services, rising regulatory, compliance and cybersecurity costs, and succession planning as brokerage owners approach retirement. That dynamic, Stokes said, makes smaller independents increasingly attractive acquisition targets and intensifies competition for deals.
Steers' path into Navacord, with its principals becoming shareholders rather than simply selling out, mirrors the succession-driven, ownership-preserving model Stokes flagged as central to the next wave of Canadian consolidation, rather than the pure scale-driven dealmaking that characterized the sector in prior years.
The Steers partnership is Navacord's seventh transaction in 2026 and will make the year the company's single largest for revenue growth, including its previously announced merger with Acera Insurance in February 2026. That deal, which closed on February 2, 2026, combined two of Canada's largest independent brokerages into an organization representing approximately $7.2 billion in insurance and employee benefits premium and $7.5 billion in retirement assets under management, with more than 5,000 professionals across over 150 locations. Acera is expected to formally transition to the Navacord brand on November 1, 2026.
Navacord has been backed by private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners since 2018, funding acquisitions and technology investment that have underpinned its growth into a national platform. The company said it will continue pursuing strategic partnerships with entrepreneurial brokerages across Canada as it works toward its next milestone of $2 billion in annual revenue.
Read alongside the Acera merger, the Steers deal suggests Navacord is running two consolidation models at once: large-scale combination at the top of the market, and succession-driven, ownership-preserving partnerships like this one further down it, the exact split Stokes pointed to as defining the sector's next phase.
