Nearly 100 Foresters Financial employees helped build a new playground at Maple Glen Housing Co-operative in Oshawa, Ontario. The co-op had been without one since 2017, when its aging equipment was removed for safety reasons.
The playground, at 777 Wilson Road, was built in a single day alongside nonprofit KABOOM! and co-op residents, and opened on September 26. Children living in the co-op submitted drawings months earlier. Organizers said those ideas shaped the final design, which includes a climbing wall, a slide and a ramped entry.
The site is expected to serve around 50 children in the co-op. It will also give more than 500 children living within a 15-minute walk somewhere safe to play.
"Every child deserves a place where they can feel free, build confidence, form friendships and simply experience the joy of being a child," said Matt Berman, president and CEO of Foresters Financial.
KABOOM! CEO Lysa Ratliff said the project showed what communities and partners could achieve together. Laura Reid, vice president of the co-op, said children had long complained there was nowhere to play and would now see their own drawings turned into a real playground.
Oshawa is the 179th playground Foresters has built with KABOOM! in a partnership that began 20 years ago. It comes two months after the insurer completed its 178th build in Calgary. The volunteer program behind those builds has engaged more than 14,000 Foresters members across North America.
Foresters is a fraternal benefit society rather than a conventional stock or mutual insurer. In Canada, it sells life insurance through independent advisors under the Canada Protection Plan, A Foresters Financial Company brand, and pairs policies with non-contractual member benefits. The spending rests on a firmer base than a year ago. Foresters returned to profit in 2025 with $224 million in net income, and members directed $12.1 million toward benefits and community initiatives during the year.
Foresters is one of several carriers putting money and staff time into local projects this year.
This summer, Prairie-based Sandbox Mutual Insurance named five recipients of its Communities At Play program. Each received $25,000 toward playground projects, and staff volunteered on construction. Since 2023, the program has funded playgrounds across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
"At Sandbox, we believe strong communities are built through shared investment, support, and a commitment to giving back to the places where we live and do business," said Rob Jones, president and CEO of Sandbox Mutual Insurance.
Aviva Canada has taken a different route. In January, it committed $250,000 to Team Rubicon Canada, a veteran-led disaster response organization. The partnership includes opportunities for Aviva employees to join relief missions. Susan Penwarden, the insurer's managing director of personal lines, said at the time that severe weather had become a defining challenge for communities and that Aviva's focus needed to stay on protection and resilience.
The three programs point to a common shift, with carriers increasingly treating community investment as part of how they present themselves to clients and intermediaries. How closely the spending connects to the underlying business varies.
Foresters frames its builds as a benefit of membership, which gives advisors a values-based talking point but no direct link to risk. Sandbox ties grants to the regions where it writes business, reinforcing its local mutual identity with brokers in those markets. Aviva's approach is the most closely aligned with its balance sheet. Money directed at disaster preparedness and recovery speaks to the same catastrophe exposure that has driven property losses and pricing across Canada.
For brokers, that last model may prove the easiest to take to clients, because it links a carrier's community spending to the claims environment their customers are already paying for. None of the three insurers has published data showing whether these programs influence sales or retention, so the commercial payoff remains an open question.
