Flood Market

Insurance companies are forcing Canadians to reckon with climate change

- Paul Gallant

In 1988, Jane Russell and her husband moved to Wallaceville, a picturesque riverside neighbourhood in High River, Alberta. The couple built their new home 1.2 metres above ground level. “They said that that would protect you from the 100-year flood,” says Russell, referring to the 1 percent chance of a major flood happening in any given year. In 2013, when heavy rains caused some rivers east of the Rockies to overflow, High River’s entire population of 13,000 residents was among the nearly 100,000 people ordered to evacuate from their communities. Neighbourhoods were underwater for weeks; you could boat along the streets of Wallaceville. Russell’s home was ruined.

Now living at a higher point in High River to avoid the floods, Russell is one of the growing number of Canadians who have learned first-hand that terms like “100-year flood” are now almost meaningless. Climate-related disasters — hurricanes, torrential rains, overflowing rivers, forest fires, coastal destruction caused by rising sea levels — have become more severe, more frequent, and more unpredictable. But it was those 2013 floods in southern Alberta — which cost an estimated $1.9 billion in insured losses and over $4 billion in uninsured losses — that made the insurance industry seriously rethink not only how it responds to the threat of global warming but also how it can limit the damage caused by natural calamities.