Finance committee  If I could add something, as was mentioned before, the last time there was any collection on this was more than 70 years ago. There's no more risk. It has been known for many decades that there is no risk in there.

Finance committee  Yes. In the regions in which they operate, it's not rare to see that they have the majority of the market.

Finance committee  Absolutely. It's not rare to see stock companies having a surplus of about 25¢ per dollar of premium when you look at mutuals. Because they do not have access to capital, they have to be more prudent in the way they operate, and so they keep in surplus. It's not rare to have 50¢

Finance committee  What I mean is that if the company that demutualized merged with another company or many other companies, the surplus would remain within the mutual community. We're saying that a company that wishes to demutualize and leave the mutual system should leave behind the mutual surplu

Finance committee  We mean that we would like the mutual system to get the surplus of any demutualizing company.

Finance committee  The surplus is owned by the mutual system. It has been built by many generations of mutual policyholders who wished to build a mutual insurance company.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for your invitation to appear before you today. CAMIC is a trade association for property and casualty mutual insurers—the insurers of home, auto, farm, and commercial assets. The association represents the large majority of

Finance committee  On behalf of the Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, I would like to thank this committee for allowing us to present our pre-budget submission. The main purpose of CAMIC's submission is to talk about demutualization. For the first time in recent history, a proper

Finance committee  Our pension system, within the mutual insurance companies, is much less generous than what currently exists in the federal government. Despite that fact, our system is seriously underfunded. We are currently evaluating how much money would have to be injected in order to keep our

Finance committee  Good day. Thank you for inviting me here. The Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies represents 91 companies. They are property and casualty insurance companies, and they are also mutuals. They're mutuals in the sense that instead of being stock companies, they're o

Finance committee  No, it's not that they are not paying these taxes. Foreign companies, in their own countries, often have contingency funds for disasters. The government tells them to put money aside in case there is a major disaster. We don't need to look far for an example. We need only think o

Finance committee  The contingency funds are not taxed. When we have a contingency fund, it is set. Therefore, this is money set aside to offset current or anticipated losses. We are talking here about incurred but not yet reported losses. However, when we cannot prove that losses are being incurr

Finance committee  True. What we have are contingency funds for accidents that have occurred, the cost of which we don't yet know, such as car accidents. Often, it can take several years before we learn how much an accident cost. So we put that money aside. It is allowed, given the risk exposure.

Finance committee  It would be that everybody would be treated the same way. We're not asking to be more competitive, we're asking to play on a level playing field. The way to do so is to allow everybody to set up a reserve to better face catastrophes. It would be an amount, maybe 5% or 10% of pr

Finance committee  No. None of the mutuals have any outside companies, offshore companies. Basically what we're saying is that in order right now to build a strong reserve to face catastrophes, we have to do it on a tax-paid basis. So on a tax-paid basis, you have to charge more in order to build a