Financial Resilience Index model

The Institute’s proprietary Financial Resilience Index model measures household financial resilience: i.e. a household’s ability to get through financial hardship, stressors and shocks as a result of unplanned life events. This is measured and tracked across nine behavioural, sentiment and resilience indicators at the national, provincial and individual household level. The Index builds on over nine years of longitudinal national Financial Well-Being Studies (2017 to 2025) which is a complementary Instrument, with the study conducted three times a year with over 5000 Canadians.

The Index, created by our CEO and Founder Eloise Duncan, has a pre-pandemic baseline of February 2020. Information on the Index development methodology is published and available in our free Index releases and reports. The Institute as a non-profit organization is harnessing the Index as a community asset for good. Maintenance of the Index and the provision of independent, robust, longitudinal financial vulnerability and financial well-being measurement tracking are made possible thanks to the generous support of our funders and supporters.

The Institute’s Financial Resilience Index model, called the Seymour Financial Resilience Index ®, been peer-reviewed by Statistics Canada, C.D. Howe Institute, UN-PRB, Haver Analytics, Vancity, Co-operators, Royal Bank of Canada, Coast Capital, FP Canada, Prosper Canada, Financial Health Network, leading academics, financial health experts globally and other clients, partners and Institute subscribers.

Scoring Model

Based on the indicators, households are scored from 0 to 100 in terms of their household’s financial resilience. ‘Extremely Vulnerable’ households have a financial resilience score of 0 to 30, ‘Financially Vulnerable’ a score of 30.01 to 50, ‘Approaching Resilience’ a score of 50.01 to 70 and ‘Financially Resilient’ households have a score from 70.01 to 100. Weightings for the index indicators are not equal.

Index Distribution from February 2020 to October 2024

Financial Resilience Sedments as of October 2024

Households from all household income demographics are represented across all four financial resilience segments. In other words, you can have a household income of $150,000, but be ‘Financially Vulnerable’. Below is the distribution for Canada based on the October 2024 Index.

Find out more here about the Index development methodology or contact us for more information on applications for your organization.