Severe weather caused more than $3.7 billion in insured losses across Canada this summer, making it the third-costliest summer on record, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), citing estimates from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ).
Only 2024 ($8.8 billion) and 2013 ($3.9 billion) were costlier, in inflation-adjusted 2025 dollars. Four of the five most expensive summers on record have now happened in the past six years. In fourth place is 2023 ($2.8 billion), and in fifth is 2020 ($1.7 billion).
Storms across the Prairies were the biggest source of losses, with flooding, wind and hail events estimated at $1.8 billion. IBC also put losses from June storms in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Montreal at $1.1 billion. The two figures appear to overlap, since some Prairie events fall within both categories.
Wildfires in British Columbia caused an estimated $550 million in insured losses. Flooding in Ontario’s Niagara Region in July and August added $360 million.
The late-June and early-July storms in Ontario and Quebec, which IBC listed at $439 million, have since been revised. CatIQ raised its estimate to $491 million on October 6, much of it from basement flooding in Ottawa. The June rainfall in Montreal alone has cost insurers $442 million.
The figures don’t appear to include the September 2 and 3 storms in southern Ontario, which CatIQ put at $563 million in its initial estimate.
“These events are part of a long-term pattern of increasingly severe and costly disasters across the country,” said Celyeste Power, IBC’s president and chief executive.
IBC said insured losses from extreme weather in Canada have averaged more than $3.7 billion a year over the past decade, up from $1.4 billion in the previous decade and $883 million in the decade before that. Annual losses have risen by roughly 300% since the late 1990s and early 2000s after adjusting for inflation. In 2024, the costliest year on record, losses topped $9 billion.
The costs are showing up in insurers’ results. Intact and Definity together reported $850 million in third-quarter catastrophe losses.
IBC repeated its call for governments to reduce exposure to extreme weather. Its proposals include restricting new homes in the highest-risk flood and wildfire zones, offering incentives for homeowners to adopt mitigation measures, requiring community-level protections such as flood defences and FireSmart measures where building in high-risk areas can’t be avoided, investing in resilient infrastructure, strengthening building codes, and giving Canadians clear information about their risks.
That last point links to an issue IBC raised this month: the federal Flood Risk Finder, finished in April, still hasn’t been switched on by any province.
A third-costliest summer, following a heavy September, tests the soft commercial market that Aon and DBRS described this month. Carriers remain well capitalized, but repeated multibillion-dollar summers will keep catastrophe-exposed property, particularly in the Prairies, Ottawa and Niagara, under close scrutiny at renewal.
Brokers should expect underwriters to focus on valuations, mitigation and deductibles for catastrophe-exposed clients, even where overall pricing is easing.
