Debris flow in flood waters around a home in the Yarrow neighbourhood after rainstorms caused flooding and landslides in Chilliwack, B.C., on Nov. 20, 2021.JESSE WINTER/Reuters
More Canadian homeowners are purchasing overland flood insurance, but many people living in higher-risk areas – including B.C. communities located on floodplains or those devastated by flooding last fall – do not have such protection because it is not an option for them, is too expensive or because they simply do not know that their properties are at risk of flooding.
Bohan Li, an economist at the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), analyzed overland flood insurance take-up data from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ) and found that the number of policies sold nationally, measured as a fraction of personal fire insurance take-up, increased from 38 per cent in 2018 to 54 per…
