It is not a cancellation, it is usually not about anything you did, and the date on the notice is the only deadline that matters. Here is what to do in the first week.
What a non-renewal means.
A non-renewal is the insurer telling you they will not offer terms for the next policy period. Your current policy runs to its expiry date exactly as written, and you remain fully covered until then. That is the important thing to hold on to, because the notice reads alarmingly and the first instinct is usually to panic about coverage you still have.
Non-renewal is not cancellation
These get confused constantly and they are different events. A cancellation ends a policy mid-term and generally requires a specific reason set out in the policy conditions, such as non-payment or material misrepresentation. A non-renewal simply declines to offer a new term when the current one expires.
The practical difference matters. With a cancellation you may have days. With a non-renewal you have until the expiry date, which is usually enough time to place the account properly if you start now rather than at the end.
Your policy sets out how much notice the insurer has to give you before expiry. Find that provision, check the date on the notice against it, and put the expiry date itself in your calendar as the real deadline.
It is often not about you
The most common reason for a commercial non-renewal has nothing to do with the individual policyholder. Insurers periodically stop writing a class of business, a region, or one cause of loss, and every account in that book gets the same letter regardless of record. Roofing, hospitality, older residential rental property and anything with heavy hail exposure have all seen this in Alberta.
Other reasons are specific: claims frequency rather than severity, an unrepaired risk the insurer asked about previously, a change in your operations the insurer will not write, or a property condition such as roof age, wiring, or an unmonitored heat source.
Work out which kind you are dealing with, because it changes the submission. A market exit needs a broker who knows which insurers are growing into that class. A risk-specific decline needs the underlying issue addressed and documented before anyone will look at it.
The first week
- Read the notice and put the expiry date in your calendar. That date, not the notice date, is your deadline.
- Ask the insurer or your broker for the reason in writing. "Underwriting reasons" is not an answer you have to accept, and every market you approach next will ask.
- Request your loss runs for the last five years, from every insurer you have used in that window.
- Gather the full policy, current values, and any contract that dictates your limits.
- Start the market process immediately. Do not wait to see whether the incumbent reconsiders, because they rarely do and the time is not recoverable.
Why starting late is the real risk
A declined account is a harder placement than a clean one, and harder placements take longer. The submission has to go to insurers who actively write that class, it has to explain the decline rather than leave it to be discovered, and it often needs supporting material such as a roof report, an electrical inspection, or evidence that a problem has been fixed. That is weeks of work, not days.
Leaving it until the last two weeks produces one of two outcomes, both bad. Either you take whatever single quote arrives in time, at whatever price and with whatever gaps it carries, or you reach the expiry date uninsured. An uninsured day is not a small thing: it breaches most contracts and leases, it stops you working on sites that require proof of coverage, and it is a question every future insurer will ask you about.
If the risk itself is the problem
When the decline is specific rather than a market exit, fixing the underlying issue is usually worth more than shopping. An insurer that declined over a twenty-five year old roof, aluminium wiring, or a missing fire suppression system is telling you what the market wants, and the next insurer will want the same thing.
Document whatever you address. An invoice, an inspection report, or photographs turn "we fixed it" into something an underwriter can price. That documentation is often what moves an account from declined to insurable, and it usually costs less than a year of the premium loading you would otherwise carry.
Gotten a notice of non-renewal? Start now, not at expiry.
Send us the notice and the current policy. We will tell you what kind of decline it is, what the submission needs, and whether the timeline is realistic. The earlier that conversation happens, the more options are still open.