In its Second Quarter 2014 update, Aon Benfield Securities reported that catastrophe bond issuance hit a record high US$ 4.5 billion – the most of any quarter in the history of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market. The growth of the…
Read more →From an insurance perspective, essentially all of the large-loss hail events recorded in Canada have occurred in Alberta. Indeed, the top three most expensive hailers on record took place in that province. Emergency Preparedness Canada’s website lists the September 7,…
Read more →At this is being written, Western’s University’s Storm Damage Assessment Team is on the ground in Angus, Ontario working with Environment Canada (EC) to rate a tornado that ripped through town at about 5:20 p.m. on June 17. The team…
Read more →Prior to the $700 million wildfire in Slave Lake, Alberta in May 2011, ICLR was on record warning the Canadian insurance industry of a $1 billion wildfire loss event in the country. And while $700 million isn’t $1 billion (even when…
Read more →From a societal perspective, flooding is the most common natural hazard. This is true both worldwide and in Canada, where roughly 40 per cent of losses in the Canadian Disaster Database are from floods. From a homeowners (and home insurers)…
Read more →Though we have to be careful about attributing the rise in disaster losses in the country solely to the poor state of public infrastructure (there are many other factors that have to be considered as well), there can be no…
Read more →The impact of natural catastrophes is having an ever-increasing impact on the results of insurers around the world. According to a recent report from Aon Benfield’s catastophe model development arm, natural catastrophes caused roughly $7 billion in insured losses globally…
Read more →Whenever the subject of overland flood insurance for Canadian homeowners comes up, someone invariably will warn against it by bringing up the spectre of the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program. This is somewhat understandable. Insurance premiums for NFIP coverage are…
Read more →Each year, EY publishes our Canadian property and casualty insurance outlook, where we take the pulse of the industry and note what challenges – and opportunities – are in store for the year ahead. It’s fair to say the industry…
Read more →If we as an industry are to have any shot at all of reducing the impact of sewer backup and basement flooding, we have to start cutting through the myths, misinformation, exaggeration, conventional wisdom and everything else that is getting…
Read more →Whenever a large natural hazard event takes place and things didn’t quite go as desired (and they seldom do), you can bet that you will hear from certain quarters that the storm/flood/wildfire/earthquake “was just too big, there was nothing we…
Read more →I received a current SCOR report today that showed the 2013 results of 19 insurance companies representing about $11 billion in written premiums, about 25% of the total in Canada. The interesting thing is that their combined ratio was over…
Read more →The impact of water damage on property insurance results has drawn the attention of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. As noted by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, one out of every two dollars paid for homeowners insurance goes to cover…
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