TORONTO – The Insurance Bureau of Canada says insured damages caused by severe weather last year topped $2.4 billion.
The bureau says the March ice storm in Ontario and Quebec topped the list of most expensive weather events in 2025, followed by May wildfires in Flin Flon, Man., and La Ronge, Sask., and storms across the Prairies in August.
According to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc., 2025 is the tenth costliest year on record for weather-related losses in Canada.
IBC chief executive Celyeste Power says annual costs related to severe weather surpassing a billion dollars have become the norm compared with two decades ago when insured losses seldom crossed the $500 million per year level.
She says the shift means the country needs to rethink how it builds, plans and restores communities.
The agency says Canada’s annual insured damages due to severe weather between 2006 and 2015 totalled $14 billion, adjusted for inflation. That nearly tripled to $37 billion between 2016 and 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 20, 2026.
