It’s official. The reign of terror inflicted by superstorm after superstorm across the country last year triggered a record amount in insurance claims — $3.2 billion.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada said Monday that the December ice storms that swept over the country east of the Rockies resulted in more than $200 million in claims, pushing the total payout on disaster-related events to its highest total ever.
The bulk of the claims were related to devastating floods across southern Alberta in June, which crippled Calgary for several weeks, and cost insurers $1.74 billion collectively.
Extreme rainfall a month later in Toronto washed out basements and damaged vehicles to the tune of $940 million in claims, IBC said.
While insurers like Intact and TD Bank bore the initial financial brunt of the extraordinarily nasty weather, the string of storms has put pressure on premiums and made insurers generally more wary of taking on properties at risk of flooding or experiencing other weather-related damages.
Intact Financial Corp., the country’s largest property and casulty insurer, began moving last year to raise premiums on some clients by between 15 and 20 per cent, while imposing tougher underwriting conditions.
READ MORE: Floods force Intact to make own emergency claim
Last year easily outdistances the second-most expensive year on record for weather-related insured losses, which was 1998, when ice storms even more powerful than the ones encountered last month downed power lines and damaged homes across Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada and cost insurers $2.1 billion.
Four of the five most costly years for catastrophe claims have occurred since 2005, according the IBC.
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