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People in Saskatchewan could soon be paying more for power and vehicle insurance.
Saskatchewan Government Insurance has submitted a two-year proposal to the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel seeking rate increases of 3.75 in June of this year and again in 2027.
The hikes would be the first SGI rate increases since 2014, the Crown corporation said in a Friday news release.
In a Friday news release, the insurer said almost all vehicles would be affected by what it described as “rate rebalancing” if the proposal is approved by the review panel.
About 98 per cent of Saskatchewan vehicles would see a rate increase, with an average annual increase of $38, the release stated.
About one per cent of vehicles would see a rate decrease of about one per cent, with an average annual drop of $8, and the remaining vehicles would see no rate change, according to SGI.
Motorcycles and urban taxis would be excluded from the first year of the program to allow for further discussions for “industry-specific concerns,” SGI said.
The rate changes consider things like the number of claims and their average claims including damage, as well as injury and liability costs for each vehicle type, the insurer said.
SGI attributes the rise in cost of vehicle repairs to inflation and the advanced technology in newer vehicles.
SGI president and CEO Penny McCune said in the release the corporation is seeking “modest increases over two years” that acknowledge “the financial pressures Saskatchewan residents are also facing.”
But “with the sharp jump in auto damage costs, it’s not possible to keep rates flat,” McCune said.
SaskPower seeks 3.9% hike
SaskPower also announced Friday that it has submitted a proposal to the review panel for a rate increase of 3.9 per cent in 2026 and the same in 2027.
The rate increases would come into effect on Feb. 1 of this year and Feb. 1, 2027, the Crown utility said in a news release.
The average residential customer would see increases of about $5 per month this year and 2027 if approved, according to SaskPower, while average farm customer would see increases of $11 per month in each year.
The corporation said the increases are necessary to “maintain reliability for SaskPower customers,” and that it in coming years, it will continue to “revitalize its fleet of coal-fired power plants, expand its transmission and distribution systems, and modernize the provincial grid.”
SaskPower’s last rate increases were four per cent each in 2022 and 2023, the corporation’s news release said.
Saskatchewan’s Opposition NDP called the proposed rate hikes “just the beginning of what is a full-on fiscal trainwreck.”
In a news release, NDP Leader Carla Beck accused Premier Scott Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government of poor fiscal management.
Beck said the government has ignored warnings about the effect rate increases will have on people in the province, who she said “already report the highest financial anxiety in the country.”
In the release of Crown corporation annual reports last June, SaskPower reported net earnings of $75.7 million in 2024-25, down $108.9 million from the previous year.
SGI posted $43.2 million in net earnings, but saw a fourth consecutive year of losses in its rate stabilization reserve, with an almost $200 million drop.
Jeremy Harrison, the minister responsible for the Crown Investments Corporation, said at the time that Saskatchewan’s Crown corporations “delivered the second-lowest total cost utility bundle in Canada in 2024-25 and offered some of the lowest auto insurance and natural gas commodity rates in the entire country.”
