Image: Tara Clow
Hurricane Fiona remains the most costly extreme weather event ever recorded in Atlantic Canada.
And it is now the seventh largest in Canada’s history in terms of insured damages, up from the 10th spot.
The storm made landfall in Atlantic Canada on September 24 last year with winds exceeding 100 km/h in Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec.
It also caused torrential rainfall, large waves, storm surges, downed trees and widespread power outages.
The majority of the increase in insured damages is due to personal property claims.
Vice President of the Atlantic Insurance Bureau of Canada Amanda Dean says, “As we continue to see the increasing impacts of climate change, it’s clear much more must be done to enhance our resilience to these risks and build a culture of preparedness. This includes investments in new infrastructure to reduce the impact of floods and fires on communities, as well as retrofit programs that focus on resilience, improved building codes, better land-use planning and, increasingly, the creation of incentives to shift the development of homes and businesses away from areas of highest risk.”
Over the past 15 years, insurance claims resulting from severe weather have more than quadrupled. The new normal for yearly insured catastrophic losses in Canada is $2 billion – most of this due to water-related damage. In comparison, in the 15 years between 1983 and 2008, Canadian insurers paid out an average of about $422 million a year in losses related to severe weather.
The amount of insured damage is an estimate provided by CatIQ (www.catiq.com) under licence to IBC.
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