Natural disasters in Canada continue to drive the price of home insurance higher, leaving many residents and homeowners struggling to afford coverage, and some unable to find coverage at any price. With insured losses from extreme weather including floods and wildfires exceeding $3 billion again in 2023, providers are increasingly removing certain events from coverage in affected regions, particularly with respect to flooding. At the moment, it’s estimated that roughly 1.5 million households are unable to access affordable coverage for flood events, and prices for home and mortgage insurance have by an average of 33% over the five-year period from 2018 to 2023.
Says Joanna Kanga, spokesperson for the minister of Emergency Preparedness, the federal government “continues to engage provinces and territories, industry stakeholders and Indigenous representatives on the development and implementation of the low-cost flood insurance program.”
As a supplement to insurance, Anabela Bonada, research associate at the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, recommends some basic preventative acts. Says Bonada, “For example, if you’re in a wildfire-prone area, it’s just maintaining the vegetation around your home — not having any sort of flammable material up to 1.5 meters from your home, cleaning out your gutters, removing any dead leaves, all of that will start to protect your home from wildfire. If you’re in a flood-prone area, you can install a backwater valve, a sump pump, and this can really help protect your home.”
Source:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/insurance-extreme-weather-1.7078544
