Toronto Fire Chief Jim Jessop has called lithium-ion battery fires "the greatest and most evolving public safety risk" facing the city, after a run of four separate battery-related fires within 24 hours in mid-August, one of which injured four people.
Toronto Fire Services data showed the city recorded 91 lithium-ion battery fires in 2025, up from 29 in 2022, a 214% increase over three years. With more than 80 fires already logged by early August 2026, Jessop said the city is on pace for at least 100 by year's end, a roughly 250% increase since 2022. Fourteen people have been injured and one killed by these fires so far this year, continuing a pattern of at least one fatality annually since 2023.
The problem is not unique to Toronto. Montreal's fire department reported a comparable 195% increase in lithium-ion battery fires between 2022 and 2024, rising from 24 incidents to 71.
Jessop has repeatedly called on the federal and provincial governments for stronger regulation, noting that batteries sold in Canada, particularly those used in e-bikes and e-scooters, aren't currently required to meet a mandatory safety standard.
This is not a risk insurers are watching from a distance. Aviva Canada has said it has observed an increase in claims involving lithium-ion batteries, including notable growth tied to electric vehicles, scooters, e-bikes and battery-operated household devices.
Wilson Beck has gone further, adjusting its underwriting and risk selection specifically because of lithium-ion exposure, according to the firm's Nituda, who said the biggest changes have come in how the company evaluates and prices commercial risk rather than in coverage wording alone.
That commercial exposure is broader than it might first appear. Courier and food-delivery operations running fleets of e-bikes with batteries charging simultaneously, warehouses and logistics hubs storing bulk electronics or spare batteries, repair shops servicing e-mobility devices, and buildings with large numbers of EVs in underground parking or dedicated battery storage rooms are all facing more underwriting scrutiny as a result.
Nituda noted that companies with lithium-ion exposure as part of their core business need to reserve for losses that may simply not be insurable at all under current market conditions, a signal that capacity for some of the higher-risk commercial categories is genuinely tightening rather than just repricing.
For personal lines, the more pressing issue is a structural ambiguity in standard homeowner and tenant policies.
E-bikes sit awkwardly between "personal property" and "motorized vehicle" classifications in many standard policy forms, and that classification gap can determine whether a battery fire loss is actually covered or excluded, independent of whether the fire itself, once it occurs, is a covered peril.
Brokers should treat this as a proactive conversation rather than something to address only after a claim is denied: clients who own e-bikes or e-scooters should be asked directly whether their policy treats the device as covered personal property, and whether a rider or endorsement is needed to close the gap.
Multi-unit buildings carry a distinct version of this risk. Jessop has noted finding more than a dozen e-bikes stored in a single apartment, illustrating how much stored battery energy can concentrate in one unit, let alone one building.
For landlords, condo boards and property managers, the liability question extends beyond their own coverage to whether building policies and designated storage areas adequately address the realistic number of battery-powered devices now present in a typical building, since a fire originating in one unit's battery storage can create liability exposure for damage to neighbouring units or common areas. Brokers advising commercial or condo corporation clients should be raising battery storage policy and designated charging areas as a specific loss-prevention conversation, not folding it into generic fire safety guidance.
None of this changes the basic coverage principle. Fire damage is covered under standard property policies provided it wasn't started deliberately by the policyholder.
What has changed is the frequency and severity of the specific ignition source, and insurers from Aviva to specialty underwriters are already treating that shift as a distinct underwriting category rather than an incidental fire risk.
