Adjusting firms are predicting negative impacts to recruitment and claims processing times following changes in federal legislation that cap international student work permits.
Multiple colleges and some universities in Ontario have temporarily suspended programs following the federal government’s cuts to immigration targets and federal policy changes regarding the eligibility of international students to get work visas in Canada.
As part of the federal government’s broader cuts to immigration targets between 2025 and 2027, the federal department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has tightened eligibility requirements for post-graduate work permits.
The insurance industry is seeing an immediate impact on adjuster recruitment.
“This is really affecting all of the Ontario Colleges — there’s five or six in Ontario that offer insurance programs — and we do a lot of our recruitment directly from those programs,” says Nadine Dionne, ClaimsPro’s manager of national adjuster development.
Dionne, who liaises with Ontario colleges as part of her role, says some insurance programs are getting half the enrollment they’d normally get. Some have suspended their programs entirely as a result. Others are operating their program remotely or in a part-time capacity.
Dionne also leads ClaimsPro’s development program for new adjusters. She says six of nine newly graduated students in its first Ontario cohort were international students with work permits.
“This is how much we rely on these Ontario College insurance programs,” she says. “We scheduled our recruitment efforts around their graduation time.”
Sand through the hourglass
Adjusting firms are already dealing with a projected decline of new recruits in the next five years, alongside an influx of seasoned adjuster retirements. Coupled with the suspension of some insurance programs, that’s creating “a perfect storm” for adjuster response times, says ClaimsPro’s president, Paul Gilbody.
If claims demand stays steady, but there’s a reduction in capacity, “realistically, what happens is delays,” Gilbody says.
“If the quantum of adjusters in Canada reduces, then there is a very real likelihood that claims services — from any insurance company, any [independent adjusting firm], anybody doing that kind of work — are going to come under pressure because there won’t be enough people to manage the work.”
And if Canada is hit with another year of excessively severe or frequent NatCats, like the industry experienced in 2024, the effect of reduced capacity could be even greater on claims processing times, says Gilbody.
“I think if this stays as it is, we’ll continue to see the sand coming out the bottom of the hourglass faster than it’s going in at the top,” he says.
Shifting gears
Many colleges with which Dionne’s liaised are hopeful their insurance program suspensions are temporary.
In the meantime, adjusting firms relying on international student recruitment will have to change their recruiting and marketing strategies.
Dionne notes high school students who are looking at college program options may not see insurance programs listed. As a result, she says, “They might not even know that’s an option.”
Adjusting firms will have to market more directly to high school students rather than rely on them to find insurance programs in a college program booklet, she says.
Dionne also suggests placing a larger emphasis on recruiting career-changers through resources such as the Insurance Institute of Canada’s Insurance Career Connections program.
Related programs, such as financial services, are another possible recruitment option, she says. “We’re going to have to widen the net.”
Of course, the advantage of recruiting new adjusters from insurance programs is that they’ve already obtained several credits toward their Certified Insurance Professional (CIP) designation as part of their course load.
“As an independent adjuster, for licensing purposes, we require our adjusters to go through that CIP program,” says Dionne.
Feature image by iStock.com/AlxeyPnferov
