Soaring Plex Insurance Premiums: The Silent Charge Squeezing North Shore Owners

Opinion column by the ImmoMulti Team. Facts are sourced; opinions are our own.

We talk about property taxes. We talk about mortgage rates. We talk about the new TAL rent grid. But there's one charge climbing faster than all the others that almost no one says out loud: the insurance premium on your plex. For the North Shore income-property owner, it has become the expense line that makes the least noise and does the most damage.

🔥 The blunt opinion

Let's say it plainly: the rise in income-property insurance premiums is a disguised tax, imposed by the private sector, without public debate and without any cap. The TAL regulates your rents down to the decimal, but your insurer can hike your premium by 15 or 20% with a stroke of the pen — or simply refuse to renew you. This asymmetry is killing the profitability of small multi-unit buildings on the North Shore, and the individual owner absorbs it alone. This is not a technical inevitability: it is a transfer of risk onto the back of the person with the least bargaining power.

The numbers that don't lie

We're often told that "everything is going up." Except insurance doesn't go up like everything else — it gallops. Between 2021 and 2025, the cost of home insurance jumped 31% in Canada according to Statistics Canada, versus 15% for overall inflation, as Radio-Canada reported. For income properties, it's worse: CORPIQ has documented annual increases on the order of 11 to 20% for plexes and multiplexes, and 15 to 35% for condominiums.

The most telling detail: according to CORPIQ, the premium took up 2 to 4% of a building's rents ten years ago; today it eats up 3 to 5%, depending on the type of heating. On a North Shore triplex that collects $45,000 in annual rents, that slide easily represents an extra $900 a year that vanishes — money you won't recover, since the TAL doesn't let you pass that increase on to your tenants fully and immediately.

Renewal refusal: the worst-case scenario

A premium increase can be absorbed. A renewal refusal can derail an entire transaction or financing arrangement. And insurers are tightening their criteria. The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports record insured losses of $9.4 billion in 2024, with a frequency of climate catastrophes of about 15 per year versus 2 in the 1980s. The direct consequence: insurers raise deductibles (up to $10,000 for hail), reduce coverage, or simply stop offering certain protections — flood coverage chief among them.

For a North Shore plex with a roof more than fifteen years old or in a waterfront sector — think of certain neighbourhoods in Deux-Montagnes or Saint-Eustache — that can translate into a non-renewal letter. And a building no insurer wants to cover becomes a building no bank wants to finance. The spiral is well known, and it closes fast.

Underinsurance, the silent trap

Here's the trap no one talks about: many owners believe they are well insured when they are in fact underinsured. Because rebuilding costs have exploded, a policy signed four or five years ago may cover well below the real bill. CORPIQ, in a February 2026 piece, noted that several owners discovered the hard way that their sewer-backup and flood coverage, capped at $10,000-$20,000, was insufficient.

In the event of a major loss, the proportional rule applies: if your building is insured at 70% of its rebuilding value, the indemnity can be cut by the same proportion. And let's not forget rental income loss during the months of rebuilding — rents that stop coming in, while taxes and a mortgage keep right on running. Too many plex owners neglect this coverage until the day they desperately need it.

Read also: our opinion on the assessment roll driving up plex taxes on the North Shore, on the maintenance and habitability burden on the plex owner, and on how housing policy is crushing the small multi-unit landlord.

🎭 Devil's advocate

Let's be honest: insurers aren't raising their premiums on a whim. The risk is very real. The climate bill is documented and brutal: $9.4 billion in insured losses in 2024, a frequency of catastrophes multiplied by seven since the 1980s, and water damage that, according to the IBC, has driven up claims. As expert Nadja Dreff summed it up in Radio-Canada, "the only way out is for society as a whole to invest in climate resilience." In other words, part of the increase isn't greed: it's the price of a risk that has materialized.

We can also turn the mirror back on ourselves, as owners. Part of the problem comes from an aging and under-maintained stock: roofs put off, original plumbing, no water-damage-prevention devices. CORPIQ itself notes that poor maintenance — sometimes tied to rent regulation, sometimes to neglect — weighs on the assessed risk. An insurer looking at a 1975 triplex that has never been modernized is not unreasonable in demanding more. The harsh critic would say: if you had invested in prevention, your premium wouldn't be where it is.

The verdict

After weighing both sides, here's where I land: the rise in premiums is partly justified, but it is borne in a profoundly inequitable way. The North Shore plex owner pays for a collective risk without having the levers to pass it on. The good news is that part of this charge is controllable: modernizing, preventing, shopping aggressively, adjusting the insured value and going through a group program can bring the premium back into a livable range.

But let's be clear-eyed: for some older or poorly located buildings, the math will no longer hold. When the premium, taxes and maintenance together erode the margin to the point of turning it negative, the question is no longer "how do I reduce my premium," but "is this still the right time to hold this building." That's a cold decision, to be made with numbers, not emotion.

Is your plex still profitable, premium included?Test your building with the ImmoMulti deal analyzer — taxes, insurance, maintenance, financing. →