On July 13 and 14, heavy rainfall hit certain regions of Quebec. During this weather event, the city of Montreal broke a record: thunderstorms dumped over 81 millimetres of rain in a single day, according to MétéoMédia. 

The water-related damage “caused nearly $120 million in insured damage, according to initial estimates from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ),” reports the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) in a news release dated September 2. 

Insured losses in 2025 

In its release, IBC writes that “since the beginning of the year, various weather events that have hit several regions across the country have caused over $1.6 billion in insured losses.”

When asked by the Insurance Portal about this estimate, Pierre Babinsky, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at IBC, explains: “We do not have the estimated cost of all catastrophes to date in Canada. Part of the amount consists of estimated losses from ongoing events such as wildfires, etc. CatIQ has not yet released all the figures, even though they are providing a year-to-date total. The events for which we do have figures, in addition to those of July 13–14, are the ice storm in Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec at the end of March 2025 ($342 million) and the Flin Flon wildfires in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in early summer, for which the initial estimate places insured losses at $240 million.” 

In 2024 in Canada, insured damage related to weather-related disasters totalled more than $8.5 billion. That summer, four major weather catastrophes struck the country. One year later, CatIQ released new estimates of the insured losses. 

Call to action 

“Canada also needs a federal coordinating agency to guide emergency preparedness and recovery. Every other G7 country has an agency operating in this capacity – it's time for Canada to follow suit and take a proactive approach to emergency management,” IBC states in its release.

Speaking with the Insurance Portal, Babinsky states that “an agency through which knowledge of best practices for responding to various scenarios could be centralized would help streamline operations and ensure all Canadians benefit from leading approaches in the field. This agency could also play an important role in prevention, helping to increase the resilience of our communities.” 

“A federal coordination body can take on many tasks during a disaster, such as coordinating the necessary resources when a province needs federal assistance to speed up emergency management efforts. It would be a national agency dedicated to coordinating disaster preparedness, emergency management, and post-disaster recovery support,” he adds. 

“Ottawa, the provinces and the territories should determine the approach best suited to our country in order to optimize emergency planning and the implementation of those plans during disasters, while respecting each jurisdiction’s expertise and areas of responsibility. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States is one such example.” 

In addition to the United States, here are the five other G7 countries with a dedicated emergency management agency: 

  • Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), in the United Kingdom; 
  • Direction générale de la sécurité civile et de la gestion des crises (DGSCGC), or Directorate General for Civil Security and Crisis Management, in France; 
  • Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe (BBK), or Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, in Germany; 
  • Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, or Department of Civil Protection, in Italy; 
  • Disaster Management Bureau, in Japan.