The Ontario Trucking Association wants to put a 24-month clock on every trucking fleet's stay inside Facility Association, Canada's residual commercial auto-insurance pool.

The recommendation, reported by Truck News, would set a two-year ceiling on high-risk carriers who rely on the plan of last resort after commercial underwriters declined them. Fleets typically enter with elevated claims histories, recent safety violations, or operating experience too thin to qualify for the standard market.

What is Facility Association?

Facility Association is a not-for-profit residual market mechanism that operates across all 10 Canadian provinces. It writes auto-insurance policies for drivers and fleets the voluntary market has refused.

Premiums inside the pool are calibrated to recover paid claims plus administrative costs. Any shortfall flows back into the broader private-market policy base through surcharges — a mechanism the trucking industry has criticized as a hidden tax on compliant carriers.

The pool covers a small share of Canada's commercial auto market, but the fleets it does carry tend to post above-average loss ratios — the reason commercial insurers declined them in the first place. Every dollar of loss the pool does not recover flows out as surcharges on commercial policyholders, including motor carriers with otherwise clean records.

The pool's stated role, on paper, is as a temporary way-station rather than a long-term home. In practice, fleets with marginal claims records or limited operating history can stay in the residual market indefinitely, renewing year after year.

Pool underwriters price every policy to the carrier's own loss experience. New-entrant fleets with no prior record typically pay higher premiums than fleets leaving the pool with established safety histories. A 24-month cap would, by accelerating that rotation, reshape the pool's average cost curve over time.

What does the 24-month cap change?

The OTA's proposal would convert that indefinite stay into a defined two-year window. A fleet completing 24 months with an acceptable claims record would have a clearer path into the voluntary market. One that did not would, at the end of two years, lose residual-market coverage and either qualify commercially or exit the industry.

For small and new-entrant carriers — the operators most likely to begin in Facility Association — the cap shortens the runway to build a market-ready safety record. Each claims decision, each CVOR inspection outcome, each driver hire would carry a defined commercial consequence.

For larger carriers with established commercial programs, the change would surface at acquisition and onboarding. A purchase of a Facility Association-insured fleet, or a driver hire tied to residual-market history, would carry a defined expiration rather than an open-ended risk transfer.

For brokers, the cap would shift the underwriting conversation from renewal management to exit planning from day one.

Where does the proposal go from here?

The 24-month framework now sits before provincial insurance regulators, who set Facility Association's mandate and approve rate filings. Adoption in Ontario — or any other province — would require consultation with the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators and Facility Association's member insurers.

If implemented, the cap would also reset the pool's underlying risk mix every two years. Marginal carriers would cycle out at the end of their window. Newer entrants with thinner operating experience would cycle in.

The OTA's move puts a concrete number on a long-running industry argument: that indefinite stays inside a high-cost residual pool distort competition and shift cost onto carriers already operating safely. Whether the 24-month ceiling sticks will depend on how provincial regulators balance the proposed clock against Facility Association's core mandate to keep every fleet insured.