natural disaster claims

B.C. floods will be Canada’s most expensive natural disaster this year

B.C. floods will be Canada’s most expensive natural disaster this year

The flooding in southern British Columbia will be the largest natural catastrophic disaster for the insurance industry in 2021, says Marcos Alvarez, DBRS Morningstar’s head of insurance. Insurance companies have not yet been able to provide estimates of what the total cost of damages for the B.C. flooding could tally up to, but Mr. Alvarez said in the past 10 years Canada has had several flood events across the country that each surpassed $1-billion in insurance claims. “Increases in average annual insured weather-related losses are higher in Canada than at the global level,” Mr. Alvarez said. “This is consistent with the notion that the warming of Canada’s climate is happening at about twice the rate of the global average.”