Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Home and fire insurability are major concerns in the NWT, and the cost of insurance premiums may continue to rise for homeowners. The level of risk determines the cost of insurance premiums. Canadian insurers can consider the likelihood of a customer or group of customers with a similar set of circumstances making a claim and how much those claims might cost. The price for premiums is based, in part, on an insurer's best estimate of the amount it will be required to pay out in claims in any given year.

The Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, or OSI, regulates the business of insurance in the NWT and enforces our Insurance Act and its regulations. The Act and regulations cover licensing and regulation for insurance companies operating here.

It's difficult to establish how many homes are currently uninsured across the NWT and for what reasons they've been denied coverage. Reasons for denial may not be public or could be based on the insurer's proprietary risk assessment model. The OSI does not track this information, and it's difficult to connect the rising cost of premiums using this risk-based model to the consumer and community price indexes that are published by the NWT Bureau of Statistics.

While insurers themselves set the costs for their premiums and products, there are mitigation efforts that local governments could undertake to help reduce costs. For example, concerning commercial fire insurance, the presence of hydrants and a full-time fire department in a community could bring down costs. I'm not going to go down the municipal funding gap rabbit hole quite yet, though, Mr. Speaker.

Section 270 of the Insurance Act requires that the superintendent of insurance prepare annual reports for the Minister. Part of these reports track the increase in amounts of insurance premiums through the amount of gross receivable insurance premiums. For example, there was a 24 percent increase between 2019 and 2023; the last annual report being published on December 30th, 2023. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll have questions for the Minister of Finance today.