Severe weather and natural disasters caused more than $3 billion in insured damages for the second year in a row in 2023. The McDougall Creek wildfire burns on the mountainside above houses in West Kelowna, B.C., Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
OTTAWA – Severe weather and natural disasters caused more than $3 billion in insured damages for the second year in a row in 2023.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada’s annual tally is topped by wildfires in the Okanagan and Shuswap areas of B.C., which cost $720 million.
Other notable events 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.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 8, 2024.
