'Societal loss' from Canada's extreme weather in 2025 was $3.4B
Canada experienced another year of extreme weather in 2025, with insured costs of C$2.4 billion and uninsured damages adding another C$1 billion to the final amount.
The bill for the insured and uninsured losses from extreme weather events in Canada in 2025 has came in, and it is quite the hefty tab.
According to CatIQ, an insured loss and exposure indices provider, the insured cost from the weather events totalled C$2.4 billion.
With an additional C$1 billion from uninsured damages, that brings the "societal cost" to C$3.4 billion, according to the Institute for Catastrophe Loss Reduction (ICLR), CatIQ cited in its news release.
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The insured-loss total makes 2025 the ninth-highest year in Canada, according to CatIQ, with the figure on the lower end of the scale in the past five years. It was considerably lower than the amount incurred from the destructive 2024, which racked up C$9.1 billion.
Late-March 2025 ice storm damage in Orillia, Ont. (Nathan Howes/The Weather Network)
"Extreme hazards cost Canadians billions of dollars in insured and uninsured damage each year. In 2025, this included winter storms and wildfire damage across the country. In 2024, this included flooding, hail, and wildfire," said Paul Kovacs, ICLR executive director, in a news release. "It [doesn't need to be]. Small investments in proven protection can reduce or prevent most losses."
March ice storm the most damaging event in 2025
CatIQ said 2025 was "was anything but typical," despite what it called an average year in loss.
It was second in total catastrophes declared, second in ice storm losses and first in fire catastrophes declared.
The costliest event in 2025 was the destructive, long-duration ice storm in late March that hit Ontario and Quebec, resulting in $490 million of catastrophic insured loss--nearly 25 per cent of the annual amount in Canada.
March 30, 2025 ice storm. (Mark Robinson/The Weather Network)
That ice storm becomes the second-costliest affair of that nature on record, following the 1998 ice storm that is estimated to have caused C$2.3 billion in Canada, a figure CatIQ attributed to the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) in 2022.
“While 2025 marked a welcome reprieve after the record-shattering losses of 2024, the data shows that this 'average' year was anything but [that]," said Laura Twidle, president and CEO of CatIQ, in the news release.