Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

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Does a Canadian mortgage broker need E&O insurance? It depends which province, explained

Our explainer on how Canadian mortgage broker regulation works covers why there's no single national answer to most questions like this. Errors and omissions insurance is a clean example of exactly how much that varies.

Ontario and Alberta: a matching structure

Ontario's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) requires every mortgage brokerage and administrator to carry E&O insurance, in a form FSRA approves, with extended coverage specifically for fraudulent acts — set at a minimum of $500,000 per occurrence and $1,000,000 for all occurrences in a policy year. A brokerage must notify FSRA if the coverage is cancelled, not renewed, or claimed against. Alberta's Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA) requires the same structure at the same dollar minimums for Alberta mortgage brokerages, and won't authorize a brokerage to operate at all without proof of both the E&O policy and its fraud endorsement already in place.

Quebec: a higher bar

Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) also requires mortgage brokerage representatives to carry professional liability (errors and omissions) insurance as a condition of authorization to practice — but at meaningfully higher minimums than Ontario or Alberta: $1,000,000 per claim and a $2,000,000 annual aggregate, plus defence costs in addition to those limits.

British Columbia: no requirement at all, until a 2026 change

British Columbia has been the genuine outlier: under the existing Mortgage Brokers Act framework, BC has had no requirement for a mortgage broker or submortgage broker to carry E&O insurance at all — a real, material gap compared with Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec. That changes under BC's new Mortgage Services Act, which brings BC in line with the $500,000-per-occurrence/$1,000,000-aggregate standard already used in Ontario and Alberta, with mandatory notification to the regulator on cancellation, non-renewal, or a coverage shortfall — effective October 13, 2026.

Why this is worth checking province by province, not assuming

As with our explainer on license reciprocity across provinces, the pattern here is the same: a requirement that's well-established in one province can be entirely absent, or set at a very different dollar figure, in another — and a brokerage operating across provincial lines can be fully compliant in one jurisdiction under a rule that simply doesn't exist, or exists differently, next door. Checking a specific provincial regulator's own current rule is the only reliable way to know what actually applies.