Line4

In forceLife insurers: financial statementsLast checked 11 November 2026

Life insurer supervisory annual return (LF3)

A regulatory return listed by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), Canada.

The annual supplement to the life returns: affidavits verifying the annual return, corporate information, worldwide business (foreign insurers), detailed exhibits on assets, liabilities, insurance and reinsurance, segregated funds, investments in subsidiaries and provincial and territorial exhibits. Source

Official title: Life Supervisory Annual Supplement Return (LF3)

The facts

Who files
OSFI's reporting requirements tables list it for: Canadian life insurers (including insurance holding companies and non-operating life companies); foreign life insurers; Canadian fraternal benefit societies; foreign fraternal benefit societies. Source
How often
Annual. Source
Deadline
Annual filing: within 60 days. Subject to the Late and Erroneous Filing Penalties (LEFP) framework. Source
Format
XML, Excel. OSFI's federal filing requirements table (Section V) marks this filing as: XML file: Yes; special Excel file (OSFI665): Yes (annual filing). Source
How it is filed
Filing routes recorded for the OSFI: Regulatory Reporting System (RRS); Regulatory Data Hub (RDH). See how firms file with the OSFI.
Status
In forceOSFI has published 2027 versions of the insurer returns for IFRS 18. The 2027 pages say insurers with a December 31, 2026 year end use the new returns from January 1, 2027, and those with an October 31, 2027 year end from November 1, 2027. Filed in the Regulatory Reporting System (RRS). OSFI's Data Collection Modernization initiative will replace RRS with a new platform, the Regulatory Data Hub (RDH); OSFI says the launch is now targeted for spring 2027 and asks filers to keep using RRS until then. Financial filing for insurers moves to RDH in Release 3; OSFI says more details on financial returns will come in 2027. Source
Group
Life insurers: financial statements

Templates (53)

The tables and forms inside the return. Plain name first, the OSFI's code in brackets.

  • Affidavit Verifying Annual Return (Canadian) (10000)
  • Affidavit Verifying Annual Return - Chief Agent (Foreign) (10002)
  • Affidavit - Chief Executive Officer (Foreign) (10004)
  • Shareholders - by class of shares (10020)
  • Shareholders - by class of shares (10030)
  • Corporate and Regulatory Information (Foreign) (10033)
  • Corporate Organization Chart (10040)
  • General interrogatories (10050)
  • GENERAL INTERROGATORIES (continued) (10060)
  • GENERAL INTERROGATORIES (continued) (10070)
  • GENERAL INTERROGATORIES (continued) (10080)
  • GENERAL INTERROGATORIES (continued) (10090)
  • General interrogatories (11050)
  • General interrogatories (11060)
  • General interrogatories (11070)
  • Assets (15010)
Show all 53 templates
  • Liabilities, Policyholders' and Shareholders' Equity (15020)
  • Liabilities and Surplus (Fraternals) (15021)
  • Statement of Income (15030)
  • Capital/(Surplus) / Solvency Information (15040)
  • Corporate Investments by Sector (21030)
  • Significant Exposures (21040)
  • Mortgage Loans (21050)
  • Mortgage Loans - 25 Largest Uninsured (21060)
  • Mortgage Loans - Geographic Distribution (21070)
  • Interests in Associates & Joint Ventures (21100)
  • Derivative Instruments Risk Profile (21110)
  • Derivative Instruments Risk Profile: Gross/Net Mark to Market Exposures (21120)
  • Substantial Investments (21130)
  • Principal Custodians of Cash and Invested Assets (21140)
  • Receivables - Affiliates, Subsidiaries, Associates and Joint Ventres (21150)
  • Assets/Liabilities arising from Insurance Contracts Issued and Reinsurance Contracts Held by Line of Business - Canada and U.S.A. (22010)
  • Assets/Liabilities arising from Insurance Contracts Issued and Reinsurance Contracts Held - Summary (22020)
  • Provisions, Accruals & Other Liabilities (22030)
  • Assets and Liabilities - In Canada (35075)
  • Liquid Assets & Cashable Liabilities - By Territory (35080)
  • Remaining CSM from Insurance Contracts Estimated at the End of the Year (35085)
  • Insurance Revenue - Canada (45015)
  • Insurance Revenue - Out of Canada (45025)
  • Reinsurance Contracts Held (45060)
  • Net Assets (60010)
  • Net Assets Movement for the Year by Type of Fund (60020)
  • Interrogatories to segregated funds (60040)
  • INTERROGATORIES TO SEGREGATED FUNDS (continued) (60050)
  • Investments In Subsidiaries - Part A (75010)
  • Investments In Subsidiaries - Part B (75020)
  • Asssets/Liabilities arising from Insurance Contracts Issued and Reinsurance Contracts Held by Line of Business - In Canada (75030)
  • Analysis of Amounts of Life Insurance Effected and In Force (75040)
  • Reinsurance Contracts Held Summary - Registered Reinsurance (75075)
  • Reinsurance Contracts Held Summary - Unregistered Reinsurance (75085)
  • Insurance Revenue (95050)
  • Insurance Service Expenses (95060)
  • Reinsurance Contract Held Net Income (Expenses) (95070)

Schedules (worksheets) in lf3-q4-return-releve-t4-2026-10-02-en.xlsx, named from the workbook's table of contents or schedule titles. Source

Validation rules

885 rules, as counted from the OSFI's published material. Software can run them exactly as published. Source

How they are written: Excel workbook, one row per rule (Rule ID, Rule Type, Description and a Formula or Expression column in OSFI's RRS rule syntax, for example EqualWithinThreshold(GetDataValue([ReportingEndDate],[FirmID],[@schema=LF1, @item=/LF1/20/...).

The validation rules published for the next (2027) version, lf3-2027-q1-t1-09-10-2026-validation-en.xlsx, list 867 rules.

The rules, on osfi-bsif.gc.ca

How they were counted

Counted 885 rows with a rule in the 'Validation rules' sheet of lf3-2025-q2-t2-validation-en.xlsx (885 error).

Counts are in the OSFI's own unit, so they are not comparable with other regulators' counts.

Public data

Published firm by firm. OSFI publishes data from this return institution by institution, with industry totals, as CSV files on the Government of Canada open data portal: "LF3 - Life Supervisory Annual Return (Active)" in the Life insurance companies dataset; "LF3 - Life Supervisory Annual Return (Active)" in the Fraternal benefit societies dataset. Source

Where it is published (CSV)

  • OSFI financial data: Life insurance companies (open.canada.ca)

    Firm by firm · CSV (long format: one row per institution, period and data point address, with English and French labels)

    Institution-by-institution data, with industry totals, from OSFI's returns for life insurance companies, one CSV file per return: LCA - LICAT (Active); LCQ - LICAT (Active); LF1 - Life Core Financial Statement Return (Active); LF2 - Life Supervisory Quarterly Return (Active); LF3 - Life Supervisory Annual Return (Active). The dataset is updated quarterly (last updated on the portal 2026-10-11) and also holds 8 CSV files for returns OSFI no longer collects, a data dictionary and a user manual. The dataset page gives 2026 publication dates: monthly returns on or about the 15th of each month; quarterly returns about a week after the due date (Q1 due May 15, published May 23; Q2 due Aug 14, published Aug 22; Q3 due Nov 14, published Nov 22; Q4 due March 1, published March 19). Source

  • OSFI financial data: Fraternal benefit societies (open.canada.ca)

    Firm by firm · CSV (long format: one row per institution, period and data point address, with English and French labels)

    Institution-by-institution data, with industry totals, from OSFI's returns for fraternal benefit societies, one CSV file per return: LCA - LICAT (Active); LCQ - LICAT (Active); LF1 - Life Core Financial Statement Return (Active); LF2 - Life Supervisory Quarterly Return (Active); LF3 - Life Supervisory Annual Return (Active). The dataset is updated quarterly (last updated on the portal 2026-10-11) and also holds 8 CSV files for returns OSFI no longer collects, a data dictionary and a user manual. The dataset page gives 2026 publication dates: monthly returns on or about the 15th of each month; quarterly returns about a week after the due date (Q1 due May 15, published May 23; Q2 due Aug 14, published Aug 22; Q3 due Nov 14, published Nov 22; Q4 due March 1, published March 19). Source

Official documents (27)

The OSFI's own files, with the size and SHA-256 fingerprint of each as downloaded on 11 November 2026, so anyone can tell whether a copy is the same version.

Sources

Every page and document this return's facts were read from.

Knowing exactly what is collected, in what format and under which rules is the first step to real-time supervision. Line4 builds SupTech software for financial regulators that runs checks like these as each return arrives.

Line4's text and records here are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit: “Source: Line4 regulatory submissions library (CC BY 4.0), https://www.line4.ai”. The regulators' documents, forms, taxonomies, rules and data belong to them: see OSFI's reuse terms. This describes what regulators publish. It is not legal or regulatory advice: always rely on the regulator's own text.

Last checked 11 November 2026.