Acera Insurance’s Aliya Daya, Senior Client Executive, shared ways insurance brokers can help their clients in the building industry prepare for a possible tariff on Canadian goods.
The timely conversation came on the heels of US President Donald Trump’s continued threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods entering the United States as of Feb. 1, 2025.
“We always try to be very positive about this. But we, as a country, are in this nebulous space at the moment where we don’t really know what’s going to happen. Everybody is extremely anxious and trying to prepare and make plans, but you just don’t know what’s going to happen, whether it’s all bluster or if, as of February 1, we’re going to have tariffs.”
Aliya Daya, Senior Client
How Canadian construction businesses can protect against tariffs
While Aliya noted there is no insurance to directly safeguard against tariffs, there are some options that provide “soft tariff coverages.” This can include trade credit insurance and business interruption insurance with a supply chain endorsement.
“There’s certain types of business interruption [coverage] that includes supply chain endorsements that cover financial losses from disruptions caused by trade barriers, such as delays in material. Those [act] kind of like extensions and softer coverages of existing products but they’re not full tariff coverage.”
Aliya Daya, Senior Client Executive
She added that insurance brokers can also be instrumental in helping their clients identify risk mitigation solutions to help ward off the financial impact and other ripple effects that the proposed tariffs may cause.
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