Following 1995, productivity surged in the United States, with investment in new equipment and organizational change. In Canada, these effects do not seem to have been experienced to the same degree, perhaps due to the more localized nature of Canadian markets. Transportation is another factor on the cost side.
Therefore, in the last decade the insurance business was very dynamic also in terms of foreign direct investment. Insurance undertakings founded by foreign owners started from very high pecuniary founder’s stakes, and with the growth of their business, became also serious investors in government bonds and other financial instruments; not so rarely they even founded their own subsidiaries and invested in real estate construction.