Severe weather caused more than $2.4B in insured losses in 2025: insurance bureau
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.99/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
TORONTO – Insured damages caused by severe weather last year topped $2.4 billion, the Insurance Bureau of Canada says.
According to calculations by Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc., the March ice storm in Ontario and Quebec topped the list of most expensive weather events in 2025, followed by May wildfires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and storms across the Prairies in August.
Flooding in southern British Columbia and parts of Alberta added to insured damage totals last year.
The bureau said 2025 is the tenth costliest year on record for weather-related losses in Canada.
“Severe weather events continue to intensify,” said IBC president and chief executive Celyeste Power in a news release.
She said two decades ago, insured damages seldom exceeded $500 million per year. But now, annual costs of weather events surpassing the billion-dollar mark have become the norm.
“This shift demands that we fundamentally rethink how we build, plan and restore communities across our country,” she said.
Power said the country needs to integrate household resiliency against severe weather, which will be more cost effective than paying to rebuild after every disaster.
Annual insured damages due to severe weather between 2006 and 2015 totalled $14 billion, adjusted for inflation, the bureau said. That nearly tripled to $37 billion between 2016 and 2025.
Weather-related insured losses last year were significantly lower than the damages recorded in 2024, which hit a record high of $9.4 billion in 2025 dollars. A slew of weather events racked up damage totals in 2024 including the Jasper, Alta., wildfires, flash floods in the Greater Toronto Area, a hailstorm in Calgary and remnants of hurricane Debby in Quebec.
The second most expensive year for insured losses was 2016 at $6.5 billion, in 2025 dollars, when devastating wildfires tore through Fort McMurray, Alta.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 20, 2026.