Toronto, Ontario — A new report from Intact Financial Corp. shows that driving levels among Canadians are on their way back up to pre-pandemic rates, but we still aren’t quite there yet.
“Driving activity has been on the rise since early May,” said Isabelle Girard, senior vice president of personal lines at Intact.
“We are now sitting just 5 points below pre-COVID levels of driving. So as vaccination continues to progress, we expect that driving will also continue to rise in the coming weeks,” Girard said during an earnings call on Wednesday.
Girard says that while weekend driving rates are making their way back up to historic levels, rush hour driving has still not come back to where it was, in spite of government vaccination efforts.
Intact has seen its overall loss ratio spike to 59.6 percent, a 5.9 percent increase from Q2 of 2020, which the company attributes to increased driving activity as the country pulls out of lockdown restrictions. However, Intact says that claims frequency remains below historic levels.
