There’s a new, counterintuitive logic starting to form about how to advocate for building resiliency into Canadian homes.
Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry needs to lean into the psychology of building back better after a disaster, as opposed to focussing too much on trying to get politicians’ attention to take preventative measures before a natural catastrophe occurs, says Matt Godsoe, director of resilience and economics integration at Public Safety Canada.
And to be effective, stakeholders in the rebuild process should help homeowners develop post-disaster plans for building back better, says Becky Denlinger, retired deputy manager of Emergency Management B.C. These plans will help focus people’s thinking on building resilience when they are in shock at the enormity of their loss, she says.
The two participated on a panel at the 2024 National Insurance Conference of Canada (NICC) in Vancouver, and Godsoe encouraged the Canadian P&C insurance industry to refine its approach to advocacy for building resiliency into homes after a disaster.
“Building back better, fundamentally, is about building resilience,” Godsoe tells a packed house of insurance industry representatives after four major disasters in the span of a month cost the industry more than $7 billion in claims. “And for a while, I would think we were adopting what I would call a virtuous approach to building resilience. One that was really focussed on trying to build resilience before disasters occurred, exclusively. Because that’s where we got the highest return on investment.
“But I think we’ve learned in the last couple of decades that we need to shift into a more pragmatic-based approach….What that means is, we need to stop fighting against human psychology. We know people are most willing to build back better, to build resilience into the system — at the individual, community and national levels — after large-scale events.
“We need to stop fighting the political expediency of responding after disasters. We know it’s hard to try to get attention from elected officials at all levels of government before disasters occur, and they will do almost anything in the immediate aftermath of events to coordinate and work together. So, let’s take advantage of that.”
Advocacy works
Godsoe emphasizes he’s not advocating scrapping the virtuous approach to building resilience, which he stresses must be done. Rather, he’s reminding people in the industry not to forget the success of advocating for building back better post-event.
For this approach to be effective, resilience needs to be baked into a disaster recovery plan, because mere shock of a huge loss may render resilience a forgotten part of the rebuild, says Denlinger. She harkened back to her time as a fire commissioner in B.C., saying a pre-planned resilience strategy for building back better will help to break people out of the shock of an event’s magnitude.
“I don’t know if people here are familiar with the term called the ‘amygdala hijack,’” she tells the NICC. “That’s when something scares you so badly that you can’t think; your cognitive brain goes bonkers. And I know from being a structure firefighter that one of the ways you get around that is training and learning to do something really simple with your brain, like spell your name backwards. If that’s too difficult, count to 10 and it re-engages your cognitive brain. And this is what having a plan that’s familiar to an individual homeowner or a business owner can do for them in that moment of shock and astounding terror, really.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative that we change our approach to how we use the resources that are available following a catastrophe…if you can balance planning ahead with using that plan after [a catastrophe], it’ll change the face of things. It’ll make our society more resilient.”
Contracts count
Graham Haigh, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the western region for Wawanesa Insurance, notes governments and the industry have a role to play in educating Canadians about the need for a plan and what kinds of risks they face. And that may mean putting the risks in the documents that prospective homeowners (or their lawyers) read prior to purchasing a property.
“Do we have the courage as an industry, do we have [the] courage as municipal, provincial, federal governments, to really push this forward?” Haigh asks. “Back when the Calgary flood happened [in 2013]…some at-risk properties took a DFA payment. And on the title documents, it was changed to say, ‘You’ve taken a Disaster Financial Assistance payment. You’re not entitled to a future one.’ It’s right on the title document.
“The courage part of this is to build it into title documents. [The documents] say what kind of exposure you [the new homeowners] will have to quake, to flooding, to any other perils that you’re likely to get hit with, because then we let people make choices, informed choices, about how they’re going to [plan for the risk].”
This story is excerpted from the December 2024-January 2025 print edition of Canadian Underwriter. Feature image by iStock/Bilanol
