British Columbia broke 20 temperature records this week, with Powell River surpassing a mark that had stood since 1926, according to data released by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
According to CTV News, the readings landed days before the fifth anniversary of the 2021 heat dome, an event linked to more than 600 deaths in a provincial coroner's report.
Squamish posted the day's highest reading at 34.1°C, ahead of its own previous record of 29.6°C set in 2023. For Canada's insurance market, the figures point to a peril that remains largely outside standard coverage, even as wildfire and flood attract sustained product and policy attention.
Heat behaves differently to the perils insurers are built around. Wildfire and flood are discrete loss events; heat builds gradually and spreads its damage across health, agriculture and infrastructure rather than triggering a single, attributable claim.
That distinction shows up clearly in recent loss data. Around 95% of losses tied to the 2025 European heatwave went uninsured, according to Moody's, which described heat and water stress as "harder to model, harder to price, and poorly suited to conventional policy structures built around discrete loss events."
Canada's own figures follow a similar pattern. Insured losses from severe weather reached $9 billion in 2024, but that total is driven overwhelmingly by wildfire and flood, with heat appearing mainly as a contributor to other claims rather than something underwritten in its own right.
The contrast becomes sharper when set against what's already happening on wildfire. The Canadian Institute of Actuaries published pricing and underwriting guidance for P&C insurers in February, and the Insurance Bureau of Canada has pressed the BC government to fund resilience measures and tighten building codes in high-risk zones.
Aviva Canada has gone further, committing $300,000 this month to a structural fire-hardening pilot for First Nations communities in BC, delivered through the First Nations' Emergency Services Society and beginning with the Ashcroft Indian Band. The insurer cited a 1,900% increase in wildfire-related claims from its own customer base over the past five years, while government data confirmed by Indigenous Services Canada shows First Nations communities account for around 42% of national wildfire evacuations despite representing about 5% of the population.
No comparable pilot, pricing guidance or government submission exists yet for heat specifically. Globally, insurers have begun discussing parametric triggers and public-private backstops for slow-onset perils, but Moody's noted that "products targeting heat and water stress remain at an early stage," with demand outpacing the pricing frameworks needed to support them.
British Columbia's own regulatory posture adds to the gap. According to a report from Investors for Paris Compliance, the province's financial regulator, BCFSA, has consulted on climate-risk disclosure and outlined plans but has not yet put rules into action, placing it behind Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers, which has already issued a formal climate risk management guideline.
Heat itself is not named as a distinct category in any of the provincial consultations to date. That leaves carriers operating in BC with detailed regulatory and pricing direction on wildfire, and comparatively little on the peril that, this week, set the records in the first place.
Beyond Squamish and Powell River, Sechelt's reading of 32.4°C came in 6.3 degrees above its 1958 record, the widest margin of the day. Qualicum Beach, Hope, Pitt Meadows, Victoria-Gonzales Point and a dozen other communities also posted new highs, with previous records dating as far back as 1940 and as recently as 2017.
During the 2021 heat dome, temperatures in parts of the province exceeded 40°C for several consecutive days. This week's figures did not approach that level, though Environment Canada has described Tuesday's readings as preliminary, with final figures subject to revision.
