TD Bank Group says it expects about $15 million in catastrophe claims, after reinsurance and before tax, to flow through its Wealth Management & Insurance segment in the fourth quarter—an order of magnitude smaller than last year’s Q4 hit and below the run-rate seen earlier in 2025.
The bank defines catastrophe claims as losses from any single event in the quarter where aggregate claims exceed $5 million before reinsurance. The reported amount is booked in Insurance service expenses, with reinsurance recoveries and any reinstatement premiums running through Other income (loss).
TD’s insurance disclosure shows a relatively subdued catastrophe year to date: $0 in Q1, $50 million in Q2, $36 million in Q3, and now $15 million indicated for Q4. That compares with a far more volatile 2024, when the bank booked $186 million in Q3 and $388 million in Q4 amid widespread Canadian weather events.
The directional story matters more than the single-quarter headline: the claim cadence has eased through the back half of 2025, suggesting a lighter catastrophe environment and effective reinsurance protection relative to the prior year’s spike.
A $15 million after-reinsurance catastrophe charge is immaterial at the group level, but it’s instructive for the insurance unit’s volatility profile and capital planning. Lower net catastrophe losses this quarter reduce pressure on margins and should limit noise in combined ratios and insurance service results versus the 2024 comparatives. It also hints that treaty structure—retentions, occurrence limits and reinstatement terms—continues to blunt earnings swings even when single-event thresholds are crossed. TD does not disclose treaty specifics but reiterates its treatment of claims and recoveries in its financials.
Direct like-for-like catastrophe tallies are sparse across bank-owned insurance peers, but the contrast with TD’s own 2024 figures is stark. The fourth-quarter figure a year ago, $388 million, was among the bank’s largest disclosed catastrophe quarters in recent memory; this year’s Q4 indication is less than 5 per cent of that total. The sequential moderation from $50 million in Q2 to $36 million in Q3 to $15 million in Q4 further supports a benign end-of-year loss backdrop relative to 2024’s hail, flood and wildfire clusters.
Bottom line: For an insurance audience, TD’s Q4 indication reads as a calmer catastrophe quarter supported by reinsurance, a marked reversal from last year’s late-season surge. The result should dampen earnings volatility in the insurance segment and—absent an outsized late-December event—set up cleaner year-over-year optics when TD reports.
