Toronto's largest snowfall on record is giving property and auto insurers an early-season test, after a "monster" storm buried parts of the city under nearly 60cm of snow on Sunday, disrupted transit and triggered hundreds of collisions across the region.
Officials said it will take "several days" for Canada's largest city to dig itself out. At Toronto Pearson International Airport, more than 88.2cm of snow has fallen so far this month, making January 2026 both the snowiest January and snowiest month since records began in 1937. More than 500 flights were cancelled on Sunday after Pearson was effectively snowed in.
The storm, which swept across much of North America over the weekend, delivered far more snow than meteorologists initially forecast. CP24 meteorologist Bill Coulter said Toronto’s position along Lake Ontario was a key ingredient, with Arctic air colliding with moist tropical air to produce a sharp snowfall gradient across the region.
For insurers, the combination of record accumulations, flight disruptions and a spike in collisions comes against a backdrop of rising winter‑weather losses nationally. Severe winter storms were among the events that helped push Canada’s insured catastrophic losses above $8.5 billion in 2024, the costliest year on record, according to Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) and CatIQ.
Toronto police reported more than 430 collisions in the city on Sunday, with another 200 crashes in surrounding areas, including at least one fatality. Officers warned that tall roadside snowbanks, created by plows, could send vehicles into “launch‑type” angles if drivers misjudge their approach, increasing the risk of rollovers and high‑severity impacts.
In the downtown core, motorists continued to face difficult conditions on residential streets into Monday, as plow crews focused on major arteries. Toronto’s transit system, used by more than one million riders each weekday, also struggled. A streetcar derailed on one major route, and sections of the subway that run above ground were knocked out by drifting snow and frozen switches.
City manager Paul Johnson said crews would prioritize main roadways, warning that it would be days before all residential streets and sidewalks were cleared. In addition to truck‑mounted plows, the city deployed crews with shovels to tackle problem spots.
That staggered clearing schedule means localized risk will remain elevated, particularly for homeowners and commercial property owners who are responsible for sidewalks and entrances. Insurers and brokers routinely remind clients that prompt snow and ice removal, adequate lighting and documented maintenance are key defences against liability claims after major storms.
South of the border, the same system cancelled hundreds of US flights and spawned ice storms that brought power outages and hazardous roads. At least 13 weather‑related deaths had been reported across North America by Monday.
While Toronto residents were quick to embrace the rare “snow day," the event adds to a mounting file of severe winter weather losses for the industry. Canadian actuaries and reinsurers have been warning that both the frequency and severity of winter storms are being shaped by a warming climate, shifting lake‑effect patterns and more volatile jet‑stream behaviour, all of which can turn routine systems into record‑setters.
