iA Financial Corporation Inc. (TSX:IAG)
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Apr 28, 2026, 1:29 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q4 2025

Feb 18, 2026

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the iA Financial Group Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Caroline Drouin, Head of Investor Relations with iA Financial Group. Please go ahead.

Caroline Drouin
Head of Investor Relations, iA Financial

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to iA's fourth quarter, 2025 earnings call. This conference call is open to the financial community, the media, and the public, and I remind you that the question period is reserved for financial analysts. So before we start, I draw your attention to the forward-looking statements, information on slide 2, as well as the non-IFRS and additional financial measures information on slide 3. Also, please note that a detailed discussion of the company's risks is provided in our 2025 MD&A, available on SEDAR and on our website. I will start by introducing everyone attending on behalf of iA.

Denis Ricard, President and CEO, Éric Jobin, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Actuary, Alain Bergeron, Chief Investment Officer, Stephan Bourbonnais, responsible for our Wealth Management operations, René Laflamme, responsible for Individual Insurance, Savings, and Retirement, Pierre Miron, Chief Growth Officer for our Canadian operations and responsible for iA Auto & Home, Sean O'Brien, Chief Growth Officer for our U.S. operations and now responsible for all of our Dealer Services operations. Finally, Louis-Philippe Pouliot, in charge of Group Benefits and Retirement Solutions. With that, I will now turn the call over to Denis Ricard.

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We're very pleased to be here to review our fourth quarter and also the full year results. I would qualify the results as a good quarter and closing an excellent year. And before getting into our fourth quarter performance, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on 2025, a remarkable year for iA, marked by strong execution across the organization. We met or exceeded all our key financial targets, delivering a Core ROE of 17.1% and 16% growth in Core EPS, fully aligned with our midterm objectives. Our businesses in both Canada and in the U.S. continue to build strong momentum, with solid sales across every segment and disciplined progress on our strategic priorities.

This growth was supported by a robust capital position, fueled by CAD 665 million of organic capital generation in 2025. Throughout the year, we deployed capital with discipline, balancing strong return to shareholders with investments that support future growth. This included the acquisition of RF Capital, which is already accretive in strengthening our wealth platform. Thanks to the dedication of our teams and the consistency of our performance across the organization, we closed 2025 with excellent momentum and a solid foundation as we enter 2026. With that, let's turn to slide nine for an overview of the results. Our fourth quarter results reflect strong and profitable growth across all business segments, including record individual insurance sales and very strong individual net fund inflows.

This momentum underscores our continued success in the mass market and the power of our distribution networks, which we continue to invest in to drive sustained growth. We delivered a solid finish to the year with Core EPS of CAD 3.10, and a trailing twelve-month Core ROE of 17.1%, which already meets our midterm target. These results underline the strength and resilience of our diversified business model and the momentum we carried throughout 2025. Business growth remains strong across the company. Net premiums and deposits reached CAD 5.9 billion, up 4%, and total assets under management and administration exceeded CAD 341 billion, a substantial 31% increase. This was driven by strong seg fund inflows, favorable market conditions, and the addition of assets from RF Capital.

This performance highlights the continued expansion of our distribution network, the breadth of our product offering, and the sustained demand across our target markets. Our capital position remained robust at year-end, with a pro forma solvency ratio of 137%. This trend was underpinned by CAD 170 million of organic capital generation in the quarter, a testament to our consistent value creation. As at December thirty-first, our capital available for deployment was CAD 1.4 billion on a pro forma basis. We deployed significant capital again this quarter, including the RF Capital acquisition and continued investments. Same time, we continued returning capital to shareholders through regular dividends in our NCIB.

This balanced approach to capital deployments remain a cornerstone of our strategy, enabling us to support strategic growth, return capital to shareholders, and continue investing in digital and AI-enabled capabilities that enhance efficiency and our overall product and service offering.... Finally, our book value per share increased to CAD 79.24, up 8% year-over-year, or more than 10% when excluding the impact of NCIB. In a year where book value growth across the industry was generally modest, our performance reflects the consistency of our results and our disciplined approach to capital deployment. Turning to slide 10, our Insurance, Canada segment delivered another strong quarter, with broad-based growth across all units.

Starting with individual insurance business, sales reached a record high of CAD 111 million this quarter, supported by the strength of our distribution networks, the effectiveness of our digital tools, and high advisor engagement. We continue to rank number one in Canada for the number of policies issued, a leadership position we're proud of. In group insurance, premiums and deposits rose by 2% year-over-year, supported by premium increases on renewals and good sales throughout the year. In the fourth quarter alone, sales were up 15% from last year. In Dealer Services, sales grew 4% to CAD 183 million. Finally, iA Auto & Home delivered another good quarter, with sales rising 9% to CAD 146 million. This reflects both an increase in number of policies in force and the positive impact of recent pricing adjustments.

Overall, our results in Insurance, Canada demonstrate solid execution and ongoing momentum across the board. Turning to slide eleven, to comment on, on sales on wealth management. Business activity was very strong in this quarter, in Q4, as evidenced by record individual growth sales of CAD 3.1 billion. In segregated funds, we continued to build on our leading market position. Growth sales reached nearly CAD 2 billion, up 27% year-over-year, and net sales grew to almost CAD 1.2 billion. This reflects the sustained appeal of our product lineup and the effectiveness of our distribution networks. In mutual funds, growth sales increased by 16% year-over-year to CAD 694 million, and net sales reached CAD 13 million. This reflects favorable market conditions and improving industry-wide sales.

Sales of other individual savings product totaled CAD 429 million, essentially in line with last year. In group savings and retirement, total sales reached CAD 851 million. While this is lower than last year, it is important to note that prior year sales included a nearly CAD 1 billion insured annuities transaction. Assets under management and group savings were 11% higher than a year ago. Turning to slide 12, our U.S. operations performed very well again this quarter. In individual insurance, sales increased 18% year-over-year to $80 million. This strong result reflects ongoing momentum in both final expense and middle market segments, with Vericity again contributing meaningfully this quarter. Taken together, this business is an important driver of our long-term growth ambitions in the U.S. market.

Dealer Services delivered another strong quarter, with sales rising 8% year-over-year to $295 million. Our strong distribution relationships and diversified offering continue to support growth. We're seeing good traction from our management actions, particularly our focus on service quality and disciplined pricing. This positions the business well to continue generating sustainable growth and to further expand our presence in the U.S. market. With that, I will now hand it over to Éric, who will take you through our fourth quarter profitability and capital position.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Thank you, Dennis, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to walk you through our fourth quarter results, which we are very satisfied with, especially considering the normal seasonality and higher than expected expenses linked to the company strong performance in 2025. Overall, our fourth quarter results continue to reflect the underlying strength of our business fundamentals. Turning to slide 14 for a closer look at the performance by segment. In Insurance, Canada, core earnings for the fourth quarter were CAD 105 million, compared to CAD 116 million in the same period last year. As a reminder, last year's result included elevated core insurance experience gain of CAD 15 million, while Q4 2025 reflected core insurance experience loss of CAD 4 million.

This year-over-year variation is due to the normalization of the P&C insurance experience at iA Auto & Home, as well as unfavorable morbidity experience in special market this quarter. Excluding this expense, this experience variance, underlying performance remains solid. Higher core insurance service results were recorded, driven by individual insurance, Eemployee Plans and iA Auto & Home. Core non-insurance activities, which typically show slightly lower results due to seasonality in the first and fourth quarters, were nevertheless higher year-over-year, supported by the good performance of dealer services. Core other expenses were slightly higher year-over-year as a result of normal business growth. Let's now move from Insurance Canada to Wealth Management. On slide 15, core earnings in the wealth management segment were CAD 127 million in the fourth quarter, up 13% year-over-year.

This growth was primarily driven by higher combined risk adjustment release and CSM recognized for services provided, reflecting strong net Segregated Fund sales and positive financial market performance over the last 12 months. Core insurance experience gains of CAD 2 million were also recorded due to favorable longevity experience. These positive factors were partly offset by higher impact of new insurance business and Group Savings and Retirement. Core non-insurance activities were similar to the same quarter in 2024. The higher net revenue on assets and the strong contribution from RF Capital, which is already accretive and performing ahead of expectation, were offset by lower net interest income and non-recurring expenses in other distribution and advisory affiliates. Turning to slide 16, fourth quarter core earnings in our U.S. operations were $30 million, an increase of 15% compared to the same period last year.

This result reflects higher combined risk adjustment release and CSM recognized for service provided, supported by good business growth over the past 12 months. The segment also benefited from lower core other expenses, although slightly tempered by core insurance experience losses from unfavorable insurance lapses. Core non-insurance activities, which typically post lower results in the first and fourth quarters due to seasonality, total CAD 15 million, essentially in line with last year. This includes results from Dealer Services and from eFinancial, the digital distribution entity of Vericity. In Dealer Services, the sales mix was more weighted toward insurance product, for which earnings emerge gradually over time, while eFinancial performed as expected. Now turning to slide 17 for the results of the investment segment. Core earnings for the quarter were CAD 91 million.

Before taxes, financial charges on debentures and dividends, core earnings were driven by core net investment result of CAD 127 million, compared to CAD 120 million in Q4 2024, and CAD 132 million in the third quarter. This result was driven by strong expected investment earnings of CAD 124 million and favorable credit experience of CAD 3 million in the car loan portfolio at iA Auto Finance. The CAD 5 million quarter-over-quarter decrease in expected investment earning reflects the impact of the reduction in assets following the acquisition of RF Capital. The CAD 3 million year-over-year decrease reflect the same impact, partially offset by favorable impact of the interest rate variation, including the steepening of the yield curve. Moving to slide 18 for the result of the corporate segment. Core other expenses total CAD 87 million pre-tax in the fourth quarter.

This includes CAD 74 million of core other expenses, which is near the upper end of the quarterly target range of CAD 68 million ±5 million. It also includes a provision for variable compensation that was higher than expected by CAD 13 million, highlighting the company's strong performance in 2025. For the full year 2025, core other expenses were in line with target, showing our disciplined approach to expense management and our continued focus on operational efficiency. Looking ahead, our quarterly target range for core other expenses has been updated from CAD 68 million ±5 million in 2025 to CAD 70 million ±5 million for 2026, reflecting normal inflation while maintaining our strong commitment to operational efficiency. Please turn to slide 19 to review our robust capital position and financial strength.

As of December 31, 2025, our solvency ratio stood at 133% and 137% on a pro forma basis when taking into account the impact of the 2026 AMF revised CARLI guideline that came into effect on January 1, 2026. The quarter-over-quarter variation reflects the impact of our strategic capital deployment activities, including the RF Capital acquisition, share buybacks, and dividend payments to common shareholders. These were partly offset by strong organic capital generation, favorable macroeconomic variation, and the positive impact of the updated capital requirements related to domestic infrastructure. In the fourth quarter alone, we generated CAD 170 million in organic capital, bringing the total for the full year to CAD 665 million, surpassing our 2025 target of at least CAD 650 million.

We closed 2025 with a high quality and flexible balance sheet, CAD 1.4 billion in capital available for deployment on a pro forma basis, and a sustainability to generate capital organically. This strong financial position gives us the capacity to deploy capital strategically while preserving a prudent and resilient balance sheet.... Please now turn to slide 20, which summarizes the year-end assumption review and management actions. The net economic impact was a positive CAD 10 million. The review was positive across nearly all categories. These updates and management actions ensure we maintain an accurate representation of our underlying economics and appropriately position the company as we enter 2026. The total impact, which includes an immediate impact on earnings, as well as an increase in both CSM and risk adjustment, reflects a shift in the timing of profit recognition, which is positive for future periods.

This conclude my remarks. Denis, I'll turn it back to you for the closing comments.

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Thank you, Éric. Now please turn to slide 22. We are very pleased with our fourth quarter results, particularly considering normal seasonality and higher expenses tied to the company's strong performance in 2025. The quarter that allowed us to close out a remarkable year, one in which we achieved all our key financial objectives. As we look ahead to 2026, we are in a very strong position to sustain our profitable growth trajectory. Our earnings momentum is well established, and we continue to see strong sales across all business segments. We also have a robust and flexible balance sheet and significant capital available for deployment, key ingredients to support growth, acquisition, and expansion. With these trends, we are moving forward with confidence and discipline. Our strategic investments in digital capabilities are enhancing efficiency and supporting business growth.

The recent acquisition of RF Capital, which is performing ahead of our initial expectations, further strengthens our wealth management platform. Our confidence in our earning power is reflected in our new Core ROE target, as we now expect to achieve a Core ROE of at least 17% again in 2026, along with more than CAD 700 million in organic capital generation. In short, everything is in place. We have the means, the strategy, and the momentum to achieve our ambitions and meet our financial targets. Thank you. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question is from Gabriel Deschaine, from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Hey, good morning. Sorry, I wasn't prepared for being first here. Quick question on lapse. We saw it in the, you know, your actuarial adjustments, and then we saw it was tied to one specific product. Can you tell us which product that was, and if it's related to the, you know, small amount of, you know, lapse, negative lapse experience we saw in the U.S. this quarter?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yes, Gabriel, it's Éric. The product that is at play here is a term product in Insurance Canada.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Mm-hmm.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

And this product has been sold for, I would say about 10 years now. Just before we started to sell it, just before the pandemic, and the pandemic created a bit of noise in the results, and we wanted to take the time to appropriately understand what was going on before triggering a reserve strengthening. So now we're confident with a couple of years out of the pandemic, we're now confident in the experience and the, we had to increase the lapse. Just to be clear here, it's not a lapse-supported product. It's really a term product. So we had to increase the lapses at almost all duration, including the renewal. So that's what, that's what, took place here. It's not connected with the U.S.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay, so you've had this issue for a while now, and you've observed it for, I don't know what period of time, but sufficiently enough to have a firm handle on that particular problem. Is that what you're saying?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Exactly. We had, we had set up in the past, a temporary provision to face what we thought was a temporary headwinds, and now that we, we, we see the fact that it's, it's permanent and it's a different behavior than expected, we fixed it and put it behind us.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Got it. Your buyback program, will you tell me how that works? Is it, on a program that, or, or do you have discretion? Because we saw some acceleration over the course of, well, actually this quarter heading into, results, and it seems to, you know, maybe have been, could have been better timed, I guess, is my one way of putting it. Like, what-

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Yeah, it-

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

What are your plans going forward, Denis?

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the question. We've accelerated it recently, starting in November. I think you can see the number on a monthly basis. We are running at the pace of around 4% a year right now, and, you know, we might accelerate it. It's obviously dependent. There's a formula that we have, and it depends on the price and, you know, a couple of criteria.

... but you might expect that it might increase a bit, if the prices as it is this morning continue.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Got it. And then last one on these, these expenses in corporate. So, for the full year, these, what do they call, non- what- whatever they're called, the, the rate, the one that, that qualifies for that CAD 68 ±5 million. You say you're, you hit that this year, but then we have, you know, Q2 and Q1, you had these, variable compensation costs, that, created some deviations, more noticeable this quarter. But, you know, why shouldn't we consider those as part of the corporate expenses and, you know, take a, way a different conclusion?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, the thanks, for the question, Gabriel. In reality, what took place here is one part of the variable compensation. You know, as we do the financial statement every quarter, we want the provision to be at the right level, at quarter end, reflective of all variable compensation, necessary. And in Q4, what took place is that one part of that variable compensation with the stock performance from September 30th to to December 31st, you know, justified an increase, significant increase on top of some other multiplicative, multiplicative effect that came at play. So, it's just a normal, provisioning, given what happened in Q4.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

And just, can it go in the other direction?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yes.

Gabriel Dechaine
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay. All right. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Paul Holden, from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Paul Holden
Director, CIBC

Thank you. Good morning. First question, I guess, will be on RF Capital. Since we could see the results of the publicly traded company, we saw it was operating around break even, but you managed to squeeze out CAD 8 million of net income this quarter. So just want to understand that source of accretion, and then maybe also you can remind us what can we expect from RF Capital through the course of 2026, both in terms of sort of integration targets and accretion? Thank you.

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Well, I think Éric, you will cover the first part, and then, you know, Stephan can go on the second part.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. In fact, Paul, what is at play here is... Remember, in Q3, I said that we were moving ahead or moving forward, the accretiveness expected on RF Capital for one year, for two specific reasons. The good work around the retention of the advisors and the market performance as well. So those were the two explanations for moving ahead of schedule with that. I said at the same time that, that, don't expect it to be accretive in Q4, but the reality is that the stock market performance and retention effort even showed benefit right from the start in Q4. So those are still the same reason as for last quarter. For the business, I would leave it to Stephan now.

Stephan Bourbonnais
EVP and Wealth Management, iA Financial

Yeah. Thank you, Éric. I'd say, you know, when you look at it, the integration Synergy play is progressing really, really well. I think what was kind of unexpected for us is that we were able to close sooner than expected on October 31, right? That's what gave us a real head start to our plan. We were able to create those roadmaps really, really early from the get-go and be able to deliver that in Q4, in November and December. As you know, we're no longer operating as a public company, which helped us to save on board, committee, audit, and external costs that we needed to deal with.

In the same week of the announcement, we were able to move quickly to realign the leadership team structure at RF to make sure we'd be aligned on our growth strategy and our roadmap. We started harmonizing corporate function as well, when you're thinking about HR, legal, and IT, and again, benefited from the synergies there. We even started reviewing some of the contracts with vendors. I mean, we are sharing the same vendors across multiple platforms, and we're now be able to benefit from the scale there. So this is what I think you're seeing in the result, and this is what you're seeing in us being comfortable to say, we moved this to be accretive year one instead of year two.

On the forward-looking and what you could expect, Éric mentioned very strong retention. So it's - we're in a better spot than we thought. We're creating good momentum with the team in terms of bringing them solutions for their clients, in terms of products, investment solution, the assistance of capital market. This has been very well received by the team. And what's been interesting to see is kind of the noise that we've created in the industry. So our story about being the number one non-bank in Canada with over CAD 200 billion is catching on, and people are interested in learning about it. So we've seen Investia and iA Private Wealth benefit from that.

Advisors retention has been stronger than we've seen in those channels as well, because I think our advisors understand that we're committed to the business, but we're also seeing an increase in the recruiting pipeline for both dealers. I think we're gonna be able to announce some significant advisor movement towards our organization in next coming weeks. So, overall things are going very well, and we feel very good about the progress that we've seen so far.

Paul Holden
Director, CIBC

... That's good. So I think the point on the advisor retention is a really important one. I don't know if you're able to provide any data or statistics in terms of, where retention is versus what your expectation was.

Stephan Bourbonnais
EVP and Wealth Management, iA Financial

So we-

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, on this?

Stephan Bourbonnais
EVP and Wealth Management, iA Financial

Yeah, go ahead, Eric.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, I was gonna say, Paul, just a reminder, we did not disclose because those are kind of, sensitive, parameters in our acquisition models and so on. So we did not disclose the, expected, assumption, neither the, the, the actual outcome. But, I will tell you that it's, it's really, really good in term of actual outcome compared to, to expectation, which was high, but, it showed up, very, very well.

Paul Holden
Director, CIBC

Understand. Okay. Okay, I'll leave that there. And then, second question I wanna ask is on the, the ROE target. So, you know, the positive for me is you, you achieved the ROE target actually this year, so two years ahead of plan, which is obviously, very positive. My question really then is like, why not increase the ROE target? I get, I get, I get you pulled it from 27- 26, but you're already there, so why not increase the ROE target? Is that, is it related to capital deployment and that, you know, you can't buy a business that's generating 17% ROE? I get that. So maybe that's a factor. Or is it new businesses coming on at roughly 17% ROE? I guess, or maybe you're just being conservative.

I guess I would just want to understand a little bit better, like, why, why can't it expand from the, from the 2025 result?

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Yeah, your question is good. I mean, why, why don't we increase it? I mean, the question could be asked, why would we increase it, in the sense that, seventeen percent is already where we had made the guidance at the beginning of last year. We were able to deliver on it, and I mean quicker, and now we're changing it. We're saying this is like the run rate of our ROE. But don't forget the plus, okay? So we're working on the plus. And so for us, it's really a matter of being, I would say, conservative, prudent in our approach. We would rather under-promise, over-deliver. We already always work to obviously improve the ROE.

And you hit the one important point also, because if we are a growth company, okay? We wanna grow the organization, and we're looking at acquisitions, and sometimes when you buy an acquisition, in the first years, you might not get the ROE that is your target. So you also have to take that into consideration in your guidance. So I would say it's really about being prudent going forward here.

Paul Holden
Director, CIBC

Okay. That's fair. Okay. I will leave it there. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Operator

Once again, if you have a question, please press Star, then One. The next question is from Tom MacKinnon, from BMO. Please go ahead.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Yeah, thanks. Morning. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your group experience in the quarter. I think it may have been hurt by some outsized claims. What's your strategy is with respect to renewal of that group, and how we should be looking at group experience going forward? Thanks.

Denis Ricard
President and CEO, iA Financial

Yeah. Again, in this case, I guess, Éric, you will go first, and then Louis-Philippe.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yes, absolutely, Denny. In fact, what happened in the quarter, Tom, is that, there was a, you know, the federal government took some measures, in the, in the past to limit the number of permits for, for foreign students coming to Canada. This is a group we have in terms of covering medical, foreign students coming to, to Canada in special market, in the special market division. And, since the government limited the number of permits, we kind of got hit on, both sides. I refer to the premium income did, go lower than expected, and we were hit on the claim side as well. So, unfortunately, it resulted in, in, bad experience in Q4.

But at the same time, this group will renew, is expected to renew in, during the course of 2026. I will leave Louis-Philippe to talk about, his strategy going forward, but note that in the change of assumptions for, for this group, we, we took a reserve increase or reserve strengthening to put this, phenomenon behind us in 2026, up to the point of renewal. So, it's part of, you know, we, we saw the, the impact in 2025, you have it in the experienced loss. We fixed the reserve to have it at the appropriate level at year-end, and now strategically speaking, Louis-Philippe will talk about what he's doing on the, the business side.

Louis-Philippe Pouliot
Head of Group Benefits and Retirement Solutions, iA Financial

Well, so I think the main takeaway here is we're looking at that business, and for a group of that size, there's a number of tools at our disposal. Eric touched on a few of them. It includes also working with our distribution partners repricing those groups. So we have a number of those tools, and we've taken some of those actions already, and we have the ability to make the choices of not renewing the business, even if we figure out that we can't get to where we want. So, we feel pretty good we don't have a headwind ahead of us in 2026 on that front.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Is the coverage that you're strengthening the reserves for, is that like supplementary medical? What is it specific? It's not disability, is it? Maybe you can just describe what, where you're seeing these elevated claims. What kind?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, you're right, Tom. It's not-

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Yeah.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

It has nothing to do with disability. It's really supplemental coverage, so it covers medical drugs and therapist coverage. So it's all of those site benefits and group insurance.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

When does this group renew?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

September.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Okay. So you, you're still gonna have them for, you know, a few more quarters, but you're comfortable that you've bumped up the reserves enough to cover-

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Exactly.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

The additional incidents. Is it more of an incidents issue? Is that what it is? Just more going on claim here.

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Well, I said, but I said that, Tom, two things, it's an incident and severity, but at the same time, we had less new students that came to Canada to keep the volume of premium at the appropriate level. So it's a combination of the two. And you are absolutely right. The move we did on the reserve was really to strengthen the balance sheet so that we don't have expected loss ahead of us, up to the point of renewal.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Right. And would you be able to share with us that reserve build, what the dollar amount was after tax or pre-tax?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yeah, we did not disclose it, but Tom, but it's part—if you look at the change of assumption page, on page 20, it's part of the other segment on the PNL side. So you see that we have a CAD 70 million charge on this PNL side, and it's part of that, but it's significant. You saw the magnitude of the loss in Q4, so it's significant.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Is it a significant part of the CAD 4 million insurance experience loss that you had in Canada in the quarter?

Éric Jobin
CFO and Chief Actuary, iA Financial

Yes, absolutely. Because when you think about it, you know, we refer to, to the fact that, iA Manitoba had a normalization of experience in the fourth quarter, but it, it didn't mean that iA Manitoba had an experience loss. They were still positive, but it was reflective of a normal winter. So if you take that into account, the fact that we had favorable mortality, and you see that we end at CAD -4 million, it means that the loss was, significant.

Tom MacKinnon
Managing Director in Insurance and Diversified Financials, BMO

Okay, thanks for that.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Caroline Drouin for any closing remarks. Caroline, your line is open.

Caroline Drouin
Head of Investor Relations, iA Financial

Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us today. All of our fourth quarter earnings release and slides for today's conference call are posted in the investor relations section of our website at iA.ca. A recording of this call will be available for one week, starting this evening, and the archive webcast will be available for 90 days, and a transcript will be available on our website in the next week. Our 2026 first quarter results are scheduled to be released after market close on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. Thank you again, and this does conclude our call.

Operator

This brings a close to today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating.

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