Updated estimates show insured losses from Toronto’s record-breaking flash flood event last summer clocking in at $991 million, according to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ).
Personal property losses made up most of the total damages, accounting for 77% of the industry’s loss, according to Zurich-based Perils AG, of which CatIQ is a subsidiary.
Though the storm spanned parts of Southern Ontario, “the hardest-hit regions were in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area where heavy rainfall overwhelmed sewer and water drainage systems, causing widespread flooding in low-lying areas,” Perils AG says in a release.
This figure has been updated since initial estimates put losses from the July 15 and 16 flash flooding at $940 million.
The flash flooding event was the tenth costliest insured catastrophe in Canada’s history and ranks just behind the 2013 flooding event in Toronto, Laura Twidle, president and CEO of CatIQ says in the release.
“July’s flash flooding was the first of four major events to impact Canada in the summer of 2024,” she says.
And while insured loss totals for the 2013 and 2024 events are similar, “the average claim in personal property is approximately C$10,000 higher in 2024,” says Twidle. “This could reflect inflation and policy changes, as well as trends in the use of space in dwellings over the past decade.”
Toronto’s July flood contributed to Canada’s costliest insured loss year from severe weather events, totalling $8.5 billion, CatIQ reported earlier this month. Perils AG confirms the updated loss amount does not impact the year’s total losses.
Additionally, two more days of heavy rainfall and thunderstorms on August 17 and 18, 2024 caused over $100 million in insured damage. That raises the region’s flood-related insured loss total to over $1 billion in just a month.
Storms over those two days, “led to significant flood damage in Mississauga, Etobicoke and other parts of the GTA. In addition, a tornado was confirmed to have touched down and caused damage to property in Ayr, Ontario,” Insurance Bureau of Canada confirmed in a fall release.
“Ontarians have been hit hard by flooding this year, and the damage we’ve seen is unprecedented,” Amanda Dean, IBC’s Ontario and Atlantic vice president, said at the time of the release.
Cars are partially submerged in flood waters in the Don Valley following heavy rain in Toronto on July 16 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey
