For decades, Canadian business owners have been asked to take out personal guarantees on business loans.
Loans secured by your house, your savings and your family’s future.
Until now, you’ve had no way of insuring against this significant risk. You’ve had no other option but to accept this risk and hope for the best. We think it’s time that changed.
We are Purbeck Insurance, the UK's only specialist provider of personal guarantee insurance, and we’ve just arrived in Canada. We have spent eight years in Britain doing one thing: protecting directors from the personal consequences of business debt. Now we are bringing that expertise here, because the problem is just as real on this side of the Atlantic, and until now, there has been no specialist solution for it.
What is personal guarantee insurance?
A personal guarantee is what a lender asks for when they want a director's skin in the game.
Sign one, and you become personally liable if the business cannot repay the debt. That can mean your house, your investments, your pension, the lot.
Our personal guarantee insurance coverage insures a significant chunk of that personal exposure. If the worst happens and the lender calls in the guarantee, your policy pays a percentage of what is owed.
Our cover goes up to 80% of the personal guarantee, with every policy backed by global A-rated insurer Markel International. Markel personal guarantee insurance has underwritten our policies since we obtained binding authority approval in June 2017, which means our product comes with serious financial muscle behind it.
What our cover does not do is make business debt disappear. What it does is take the personal catastrophe out of the equation, so you can focus on running the business rather than lying awake wondering whether a few bad months will cost you your family’s home.
Why does Canada need Personal Guarantee Insurance?
Canadian SMEs sign a lot of personal guarantees.
Research from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that 52% of micro-businesses had to give a personal guarantee to be approved for financing, while 29% needed to pledge their primary residence as collateral.
The same study showed that only 77% of micro-businesses were approved for financing at all, compared to 94% of mid-sized firms. Smaller operators are not just less likely to get the loan; they are far more likely to have their personal assets put in the firing line when they do.
The pressure has been building at the policy level, too. The Competition Bureau opened a 2025 study into small business loan fairness, and industry voices raised the prevalence of personal guarantees as a structural drag on Canadian entrepreneurship.
The personal cost of failure can often completely prevent an entrepreneur from taking the loan that could kickstart their business. That is a significant problem, and it deserves a serious answer.
Personal guarantee insurance in Canada has, until now, been the missing piece. We are here to fill that gap.
What we built in the UK
This is not a new concept we are testing on Canadian soil. We have been doing this in Britain since 2017. It’s tried, tested and ready to change how Canadian SMEs do business.
We have now protected more than 5,000 directors on over £700 million of personal guarantee commitments, a figure that has risen by approximately 66% in the last 18 months.
We saw a 49% rise in applications in Q1 2024, an 18% rise in enquiries across the twelve months to August 2025, and a record 58% jump in gross written premiums in July 2025 alone. The first quarter of 2026 saw construction sector applications rise 87% year on year, with the average personal guarantee in that sector reaching £217,000.
Because the economy is inconsistent, even solid businesses with competent leadership are struggling.
Protecting your personal assets is the obvious solution.
What this means for Canadian brokers and directors
For commercial finance brokers, we make it far more likely that business owners will take out a loan.
Our own commissioned research in the UK found that 74% of business owners said they would be more likely to sign a personal guarantee if they could insure the risk, and 85% said they would expect their broker or professional advisor to mention the insurance before they signed.
We have no reason to think Canadian directors will feel any differently, as insurance gives them the peace of mind they need to focus on growing their business.
For directors, our personal guarantee insurance coverage changes the fundamental maths of borrowing. The question stops being "do I bet my house on this?" and becomes "can I afford to do this without insurance?”
This also goes far beyond just numbers. Directors who know their personal exposure is capped make better decisions about growth, hiring and long-term investment.
We have seen that consistently in the UK, and it is one of the reasons the UK Government's Insolvency Service recently published guidance specifically highlighting personal guarantee insurance as a tool directors really should take the time to understand.
Why Canada?
We did not come to Canada to add to a sea of similar products.
We came because we believe Canadian directors deserve the same protection that thousands of UK directors now take as standard when they borrow.
The conversation around personal liability in SME lending has been one-sided for too long. Lenders set the terms, directors sign, and the personal consequences of failure fall on individuals and their families rather than on institutions far better placed to absorb that risk.
Our job is not to change how lending works. It is to make sure that when a director does sign a personal guarantee, they do not have to carry all that weight alone.
Whether you’ve already got a personal guarantee in place or you’re considering one, we can help. Get in touch today – we’re here to guide you through this process and ensure your personal assets are secure.