Alberta's insurance regulator has published new 2026 auto rate benchmarks - even as a freeze on new premium filings stays in force.

The Automobile Insurance Rate Board confirmed in Bulletin 09-2026, issued September 16, that it has wrapped up its 2026 review of the industry's claims history through December 31, 2025. The result is a fresh set of benchmark numbers for private passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and motorcycles, taking effect October 1, 2026, that will guide how the board judges insurer rate requests through March 31, 2027.

For everyday drivers, the numbers show injury-related costs still climbing the fastest. The board's benchmark for bodily injury sits at 8.6%, while accident benefit costs are running at an 11.9% historical trend that the AIRB expects to ease to 9.0% going forward. Property damage costs barely moved, up just 1.4%. Vehicle repair costs told a different story: comprehensive coverage claims are benchmarked to climb 5.4%, collision 2.3%, and all perils coverage 2.8%. The board held its profit allowance for insurers steady at 6.0% of premium, the same level it set back in 2023, and pegged insurers' operating costs at 27.8% of premium.

This is also the first year the AIRB has run a dedicated benchmark review for motorcycles, added specifically to prepare for Care-First's January 1, 2027 launch. Because motorcyclists tend to suffer more serious injuries in a crash, their claims costs are expected to climb once the new system's richer benefits take effect. Commercial vehicles, meanwhile, are trending cheaper than passenger cars across most coverages, with bodily injury benchmarked at 6.8% and property damage actually falling 0.8%.

There's a catch for insurers hoping to use the new numbers right away: they only apply to physical damage coverages like collision and comprehensive. Bodily injury and accident benefit premiums, the coverages tied to Care-First, were already locked in for all of 2027 and stay frozen through that period.

The timing stands out. Just two days earlier, the AIRB told insurers in a separate bulletin, 08-2026, that it would stop accepting any new rate filing that raises what drivers pay overall, across every vehicle type, until further notice. That pause covers filings submitted on or after September 14, and the board says new guidelines are coming by year's end. Whether physical damage filings under the fresh benchmarks fall inside that pause is something the AIRB has not yet clarified.

Insurers are still expected to lean on their own claims data first; the AIRB's benchmarks are meant as a backstop for companies that don't have enough experience of their own to work with. The board's selections followed recommendations from its consulting actuary, Risk Consulting Services, and took into account written feedback from the Insurance Bureau of Canada and the Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association. The full text of the report is available at https://www.airbfordrivers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Alberta-Private-Passenger-Vehicles-2026-Annual-Review-Secured.pdf.