The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) has issued a Three-Point Resilience Plan calling for urgent action to improve disaster preparedness and stabilize the country's property insurance market.
The initiative follows new polling that showed Canadians are increasingly worried about the financial and physical toll of natural disasters.
The survey found that 58% of Canadians believe their communities are unprepared for natural disasters, while 61% doubt that governments are working together effectively. Eight in 10 respondents said they support the creation of a national emergency management agency to coordinate disaster response across jurisdictions.
IBC said the results underscore the strain on insurers and consumers as extreme weather events escalate. In 2024, insured losses exceeded $9 billion, the highest annual total on record. Insurers are managing rising claims, while reinsurance costs have climbed significantly, squeezing margins and creating pressure on premium affordability. Industry executives have warned that without systemic change, capacity in catastrophe-prone regions could become more limited, echoing challenges seen in US markets such as California and Florida.
The resilience plan outlined three areas where governments should act to support market stability. First, it called for land-use reforms and stronger building codes to limit new development in high-risk zones and reduce future claims. Second, it urged investment in mitigation, including updated hazard maps and resilient public infrastructure, which would lower long-term insured losses and help keep coverage affordable. Third, it emphasized the need to close protection gaps by supporting risk-based pricing and public-private partnerships, while avoiding regulatory interventions that distort the market and drive insurers to exit high-risk areas.
IBC is also renewing its call for a National Summit on Disaster Resilience, modeled on the 2024 National Summit on Auto Theft, to build a coordinated national action plan. For insurers, such coordination would help reduce volatility in catastrophe claims and allow for more sustainable deployment of capacity across the market.
International examples show how government–insurance collaboration can ease pressure on carriers and consumers. Australia’s National Emergency Management Agency coordinates resilience measures and disaster funding, while the UK’s Flood Re program spreads risk for flood-prone homeowners through a reinsurance pool, allowing insurers to maintain coverage availability. Canada, by contrast, relies on fragmented provincial responses, leaving insurers to shoulder escalating costs without a unified national framework.
IBC warned that unless governments take swift action, the insurance protection gap will widen as reinsurance markets harden further, leaving Canadian households exposed to increasing financial risk from severe weather events.
