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Benefits a business this size could not buy alone
Health and dental cover for you and the people who work for you, priced because thirty thousand other small Canadian firms are in the same pool. Chamber membership is what opens the door.
Three employees is not a group
A business with three or five or twelve people has almost no bargaining power with an insurer. One bad year of claims and the renewal arrives with a number on it that ends the conversation. So most small firms offer nothing, lose good people to employers who do, and call it the cost of being small.
Chambers Plan exists to undo that arithmetic. Your premiums go into a pool with roughly 32,000 other Canadian businesses, and rates are set on the average of everyone's claims rather than on yours. Your three people get priced like part of a very large group, because that is what they are.
What you can put in the plan
Enterprise-level cover, bought by a business that is not an enterprise. You choose the mix, and nothing here is all-or-nothing.
Health
Prescriptions, paramedical practitioners, vision, and out-of-country emergency medical — which Chambers Plan says carries no pre-existing condition or stability clauses, a detail worth reading twice if anyone on your team travels.
Dental
The benefit employees notice first and compare between employers most readily.
Disability
Income if someone cannot work. In a district of farms, trades and oilfield work, this is the one that matters.
Life insurance
Group life cover for employees and owners alike.
Critical illness
A lump sum on diagnosis, for the costs that are not medical bills.
Virtual care
A doctor or nurse by video call, plus mental health support and a medical second-opinion service. Fifty minutes from the nearest city, this is not a small thing.
The part nobody mentions
Alongside the insurance, and at no extra cost, the plan includes business support that a firm this size would otherwise do without:
- HR guidance — a digital platform for employment questions, which is usually the thing an owner googles at eleven at night.
- Legal guidance — for the questions that are not yet worth a lawyer's retainer.
- Financial guidance and coaching.
- An optional Employee Assistance Program — one-to-one counselling for staff and their families.
Not-for-profit and it shows up in the renewal
Premiums cover claims and administration. Whatever is left at the end of the year goes back into the plan rather than to shareholders — which is the mechanism behind the number Chambers Plan quotes most often: average renewals under 5% over the last decade.
That is the whole argument. Not that it is cheap in year one, but that you can forecast year three.
- Over 50 years old
- About 32,000 Canadian businesses in the pool
- Endorsed by more than 700 chambers and boards of trade
- Administered since 1983 by Johnston Group, a family-owned Winnipeg firm
Who runs the plan the Chamber's own explainer, in sixty seconds
Read this before you get excited
Every plan has rules, and these are the ones that catch small firms out. They come from Chambers Plan's own administration guide; confirm the current terms with an advisor before you count on any of them.
- You must be a Chamber member, and stay one. Coverage ends if the membership does.
- Nearly everyone has to join. In a firm of four or fewer, all eligible employees must participate. At five or more, 75% must.
- Part-time and seasonal staff do not qualify. Employees need to be permanent, working at least 15 hours a week and at least eight months a year — which rules out a good deal of harvest labour.
- There is a waiting period of 3, 6, 9 or 12 months, set when the plan is written.
- Owners are covered too — sole proprietors and partners can apply alongside employees, provided they are actively working.
Start with a conversation instead of a quote form
The Chamber does not sell the plan and takes nothing from it. What the Economic Development Officer can do is tell you whether your firm fits the participation rules before you spend an afternoon on it, and put you in front of the people who quote it.
The Chamber ran an information session on Chambers Plan and Community Futures on 20 October in the Luseland Credit Union Community Room. If you missed it, the Economic Development Officer can take you through it one to one.
Where these figures come from. Everything on this page is from Chambers Plan's own published material, read on 14 October 2026 and linked throughout so you can check it. Member counts and renewal averages differ slightly between their pages, so treat them as approximate.
Nothing here is advice, and the Chamber cannot quote, bind or administer coverage. chamberplan.ca · Why benefits · Testimonials