Are Water Damages Increasing in Canada? Insured Losses for Flood, Rain, Storm and Hurricane Perils Show Decreasing Trend

The Insurance Bureau of Canada, Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation and International Institute for Sustainable Development released a report on natural infrastructure for flood resiliency called "Combatting Canada’s Rising Flood Costs: Natural infrastructure is an underutilized option", available here.

The report states:

"The financial impacts of climate change and extreme weather events are being felt by a growing number of
homeowners and communities across Canada. The increase in P&C insurance losses is indicative of the growing costs associated with these events. These losses averaged $405 million per year between 1983 and 2008, and $1.8 billion between 2009 and 2017. Water damage is the key driver behind these growing costs."

A review of loss data suggests that water damage is not the key driver behind growing costs, represents less than a third of total losses and is decreasing slightly as a percentage of total losses. The following chart from the report shows total losses:


And this next chart shows the distribution of water damage peril losses up to 2008 and after 2008:


The values for the chart above are summarized in the following table:


***

A review of the "Combatting Canada’s Rising Flood Costs" report on the effectiveness of wetlands for flood risk reduction is explored in this post: https://www.cityfloodmap.com/2018/10/wetlands-and-natural-infrastructure-for.html

A review of the thoroughness of cost-benefit analysis (often meta-analysis, or incomplete analysis) in the "Combatting Canada’s Rising Flood Costs" report is in this post:  https://www.cityfloodmap.com/2018/11/storm-warts-floods-awaken-new-hope-for.html