HUB International has appointed Sarah Thompson (pictured) as national real estate practice leader for Canada, effective September 1.
Thompson will lead HUB's Canadian real estate strategy and practice development, oversee the creation of proprietary risk and insurance products for real estate owners, developers and operators, and partner with Chip Stuart, HUB's North America real estate practice leader, to build an integrated cross-border strategy for clients operating in both countries.
"Sarah's deep expertise and long-standing relationships in the real estate sector make her uniquely positioned to lead this practice at a national level," said Carol Mills, president and CEO of HUB Coastal.
Thompson joined HUB Coastal in April 2012 as underwriting manager for its strata insurance program, led the Strata Division as manager from 2013 to 2017 and associate vice president from 2017 to 2019, then moved into marketing leadership, becoming HUB Coastal's chief marketing officer in November 2019, a role she has held since.
Thompson's six years leading HUB Coastal's Strata Division place her directly at the center of one of the most significant Canadian P&C affordability crises of the past decade.
British Columbia's strata insurance market saw premium increases of 50% to 300% between 2019 and 2021, with some condo corporations reporting increases as high as 780%, driven by a combination of rising claims severity, higher property values, climate-driven catastrophe losses and a hard reinsurance market.
IBC reported the provincial average strata premium increase at 35% during the worst of that period, prompting the BC government to introduce Bill 14 in November 2020 and insurers to agree to phase out the controversial "best terms pricing" practice that had inflated costs for strata corporations regardless of which insurer actually won the bid.
That crisis was still actively unfolding through much of Thompson's tenure leading the division, meaning her move into a national real estate leadership role brings direct underwriting-level experience with exactly the kind of acute, multi-year affordability crisis that property insurers and brokers across Canada are increasingly having to navigate in other segments, from Alberta auto to BC wildfire-exposed home insurance.
Pairing Thompson with Chip Stuart on an integrated North American real estate strategy suggests HUB wants its Canadian and US real estate practices working from a shared product and service framework rather than operating as separate regional books.
For brokers and clients with real estate holdings on both sides of the border, that structure could mean more consistency in how HUB approaches placement and risk advisory for cross-border portfolios, though the specifics of what that integration will look like in practice haven't yet been detailed.
HUB has explicitly called real estate one of its most important strategic growth areas, and installing a leader with direct strata underwriting history, rather than a purely commercial real estate or client-relationship background, suggests the firm intends to lean into product development for segments with acute, ongoing affordability pressure rather than treating real estate as a generalist commercial property book.
Competing brokerages serving strata corporations, condo developers and multi-family property owners in BC and beyond should expect HUB to push proprietary product offerings in this space more aggressively under Thompson's leadership, given her direct experience with the operational realities of underwriting through a genuine hard market.
