With Quebec's provincial election set for October 5, the Insurance Bureau of Canada is calling on all parties to make climate adaptation a campaign commitment, arguing the province can no longer treat floods, storms and extreme weather events as isolated emergencies requiring reactive response.
"Natural disasters are no longer one-off events; they require collective adaptation and long-term vision," said Laurent Fafard, IBC's vice-president for Quebec. "Investing in adaptation strategies today means saving lives and reducing the economic and financial toll of tomorrow. It is also the key to keeping insurance affordable."
IBC's three asks are stricter land use planning to limit new construction in flood-prone areas, stronger financial incentives for property owners to adopt flood mitigation measures, and greater support for municipalities on infrastructure planning and maintenance. Each of these is framed as a future policy commitment - but each one is already playing out in some form in Quebec right now, which is what makes this a more immediately broker-relevant piece of advocacy than a standard pre-election policy statement.
The June 20 and 21 storms that swept across Quebec produced more than C$409 million in insured damage, according to CatIQ estimates confirmed by IBC, with Montreal's West Island and areas south of the city particularly affected by flooding in hundreds of homes. IBC records an average of roughly 25,000 flood-related claims per year in Quebec over the past five years. Over the past 20 years, flood and water-related insured losses across Canada have increased more than 300% compared with the previous two decades, according to CatIQ.
Those numbers are the commercial and underwriting context in which IBC is asking election candidates to commit. The province has already had its own recent reminder of the exposure - and the renewal season following a summer that produced C$409 million in a single event is exactly the moment at which premium conversations with Quebec property clients will reflect that experience.
IBC's call for stricter flood zone planning is not a theoretical future ask. Quebec began rolling out new flood zone maps under a new regulatory framework that took effect March 1, 2026, replacing a classification system that in some areas had not been updated in 30 years. The new framework introduces a four-level risk classification based on flood frequency, water depth and climate change projections, replacing the old binary high-risk/low-risk model.
Provincial estimates put the number of homes being added to flood zones at roughly 35,000 - an increase of approximately 30% from the 25,000 properties identified under the old maps. Higher estimates, accounting for properties in adjacent risk categories, put the potential total toward 77,000. Properties newly classified as flood-prone face restrictions on major renovations, reconstruction and expansions - with direct knock-on effects for home insurance availability, mortgage financing, and property values.
The Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, representing 82 municipalities, has broadly welcomed the regulatory overhaul but raised specific concerns about how the new framework treats properties located behind dikes and flood-control infrastructure. Quebec's real estate broker association has warned the remapping could affect the value of tens of thousands of homes. Brokers with clients in areas currently being remapped should be aware that the coverage conversation may shift materially at renewal if a property's risk classification has changed since the last policy was placed.
IBC's three policy asks translate directly into three conversations that brokers advising Quebec property and commercial clients should be having before the election outcome clarifies what will and will not be acted on.
The first is for clients in the remapping zone. Properties being reclassified into a higher flood risk category face potential changes to insurance availability, premium levels, and coverage conditions at renewal. A broker who identifies which clients are in newly mapped or remapped flood zones and initiates a coverage review ahead of renewal - rather than waiting for the client to receive a changed premium notice and call in confusion - is providing a material service. That review should specifically address whether overland water coverage is in place, what the policy's flood trigger definition covers, and whether any sub-limits apply to surface water flooding specifically, since Quebec's storm pattern has been predominantly overland and sewer backup rather than river flooding.
The second is for development and commercial property clients. IBC's land use planning ask is directed at restricting new construction in high-risk flood areas. If a future Quebec government accelerates that restriction - particularly given that it is asking all parties rather than only the incumbent - a developer or commercial property owner considering construction in a newly mapped flood zone faces potential changes to what can be built and on what terms. The time to review how a current or planned development project is covered, and what happens to the project's insurance program if construction restrictions tighten mid-project, is before the election creates the policy environment for those restrictions to land.
The third is for residential clients with mitigation-eligible properties. IBC's financial incentive ask builds on programs that already exist. Montreal's RénoPlex program provides financial assistance for backwater valve installation. The province's Rénoclimat program is being expanded with a climate adaptation component specifically targeting flood and sewer backup damage. Toronto's more developed Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy Program offers up to C$6,650 per property including backwater valve coverage - a useful reference point for how far a provincial government committed to this agenda could extend incentives. Brokers who identify clients with eligible properties and connect them to existing programs now - before a post-election government potentially expands them - are positioning themselves as advisers who act on this rather than report on it.
IBC is asking all Quebec parties for commitment, which reflects the genuine uncertainty about who forms the next government. The incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec, the Parti Québécois, the Quebec Liberal Party and Québec Solidaire all have different positions on land use, municipal infrastructure investment and homeowner incentive programs. A change in government on October 5 could accelerate, slow or reframe any of the three areas IBC is targeting.
What will not change is the underlying exposure. Twenty-five thousand flood claims a year in Quebec, C$409 million in a single June event, and a remapping exercise that could affect between 35,000 and 77,000 properties are the market conditions any government inherits on October 6. Brokers do not need to wait for the election result to act on any of the three conversations above - the remapping is already happening, the incentive programs already exist, and the development risk is already live for any commercial client currently planning or financing construction in a flood-prone area of the province.
