Burned vehicles are seen at a property destroyed by the Bush Creek East wildfire, in Scotch Creek on Sept. 6, 2023. (Photo via Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)
Severe weather and natural disasters in 2023 caused more than $3 billion in insured damages for the second year in a row.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada’s annual tally is topped by wildfires in the Okanagan and Shuswap, which cost an estimated $720 million in insured losses – the costliest disaster in B.C., and tenth costliest in Canada.
Other notable events in 2023 included severe summer storms in Ontario, at $340 million, and a spring ice storm in April that caused power outages and left two people dead in Ontario and Quebec, costing $330 million.
Summer hailstorms in Winnipeg and Calgary combined to cause more than $250 million in damages.
On the East Coast, a wildfire that ripped through a Halifax suburb in May and June and floods in late July both made the list.
That places 2023 fourth on the bureau’s list of most expensive weather years – a list that is still topped by the devastating wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alta. in 2016.
A breakdown of insured catastrophic losses in Canada in 2023. (Photo via Insurance Bureau of Canada)
