Canada's 2027 EI premium hike reaches beyond payroll costs, touching group benefits, seasonal risk pools and self-employed brokers across the insurance industry.
The Canada Employment Insurance Commission set the 2027 EI premium rate at $1.64 per $100 of insurable earnings for employees on Sept. 14 - a one-cent increase from 2026's $1.63, according to a summary published by Employment and Social Development Canada. Employers, who pay 1.4 times the employee rate, will contribute $2.30 per $100. The maximum insurable earnings threshold climbs to $70,800 from $68,900, lifting the maximum annual worker contribution by $38.05 to $1,161.12 and the maximum employer contribution by $53.27 to $1,625.57. The maximum weekly benefit rate rises to $749 from $729.
The rate comes from a seven-year break-even forecast prepared by Laurence Frappier, the Commission's senior actuary and an employee of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, in an Aug. 21 report. An addendum tied to Aug. 25 tariff-relief measures - including waiving the one-week waiting period, suspending separation-payment penalties and adding weeks of benefits for long-tenured claimants - added two cents to the forecast, partly offset by a smaller-than-expected 2025 deficit and a lower projected unemployment rate.
Insurers, brokerages and MGAs are themselves employers, and the higher rate adds to a payroll cost base that is already climbing - the Insurance Bureau of Canada's Regulatory Compliance Cost Survey found P&C compliance costs rose 81% between 2022 and 2024. Self-employed insurance agents and brokers who opt into EI pay only the employee-side premium, so the new rate and a rising minimum self-employed earnings threshold - $9,515 for 2027 - land on independent producers directly, too.
The clearest link between EI and the group insurance market is the Premium Reduction Program. Employers that register a qualifying short-term wage-loss plan can lower their EI premiums, a mechanism the report credits with an estimated $1.687 billion in savings across roughly 23,800 registered employers in 2027. That structure gives group and benefits insurers a reason to keep pitching registrable wage-loss coverage as the base EI premium climbs.
The report confirms an extension, through October 2028, of extra weeks of regular benefits for seasonal claimants in 13 targeted EI regions, alongside continued tariff-relief measures for affected workers. For P&C insurers and brokers with concentrated books in Atlantic Canada, rural Quebec and other seasonal or trade-exposed economies, the durability of those supports feeds into income stability, and with it, demand, across personal and small commercial portfolios in those regions.
Residents covered by the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan will pay $1.29 per $100, with their employers paying $1.81 - a QPIP reduction of 0.35 percentage points - keeping Quebec's EI costs on a distinct trajectory from the rest of the country.
The Commission's figures also show the EI Operating Account's cumulative deficit widening to $16.7 billion by the end of 2027, from $15.6 billion at the close of 2026, though the increase only partly offsets a growing federal shortfall. The full text of the 2027 Actuarial Report on the Employment Insurance Premium Rate is available at https://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/en/oca/actuarial-reports/2027-actuarial-report-employment-insurance-premium-rate?utm_source=web&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=osfi-bsif-email.
