It’s been 150 years since Confederation this Canada Day with many celebrating this long weekend – and that creates insurance implications.

Event cancellation, special event liability and non-appearance insurance demand  ramp up for Canada Day celebrations from parades to festivals according to Matthew Taylor, general manager of operations at PAL Insurance Brokers.

“Definitely for Canada Day, we’ve seen a ton of requests come through for event cancellation and non-appearance policies,” he said. “If the host of the event has a lot of costs and expenses they put out and there’s a freak storm that comes through and they have to cancel the event, then the policy would respond.”

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The event policy can indemnify the insured for either costs or gross revenue, as the client chooses. Non-appearance, meanwhile, covers the costs of an act not showing up and can work as either an extension or a standalone.

Then there’s the liability issues associated with throwing an event.

“Negligence falls on the event host when they’ve overserved or they have too much alcohol within their function,” Taylor said. “They should definitely go out of their way to take the measures necessary to prevent people from drinking and driving such as taxis or limit the drinks per person.”

For Canada Day parties, PAL Insurance Brokers is seeing a variety of business come through the door, Taylor said.

“We’ve seen everything from small street parties, community parties, all the way up to weekend festivals - we do a lot of Canada Day parades, Canada Day floats,” Taylor said.


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