‘Wild, wild summer’: storms produce all-time number of damage claims at MPI

More than 40,000 storm-related claims have been opened with Manitoba Public Insurance stemming from summer storms, marking a historic high.

The June 9 storm in Winnipeg and the surrounding area drove a record-setting volume, making it the largest single claim event in MPI’s history.

The data is still rolling in, but the losses from the weather are likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to MPI’s vice-president and chief claims officer John Bowering.

“In my career here a storm in 5,000 to 10,000 (claims) was considered a major storm… so to have a single storm at 34,000 and a summer where we’re going to exceed 40,000 is monumental and quite hard to wrap my head around,” he said Tuesday.

The figures have put pressure on storage at MPI; Bowering says the lot where the auto insurer stores vehicles that have been written off is at its winter capacity now, before the first flake has fallen. MPI has been running vehicle auctions twice weekly instead of its usual once-per-week sale in an attempt to free up space.

“We’re confident we can keep on top of it, get the volumes down low enough so that when the snow does hit and the claims volumes start to rise again with the winter we’ll have the capacity to support all of that,” he said. “It’s just been a wild, wild summer.”

A storm that ripped through Winnipeg’s Westwood and River Heights area Sept. 6 that produced a tornado didn’t have any impact on claims because it was a fairly localized event, Bowering said, adding claims for storm damage throughout the summer will continue to come in over the next several months.

All claims should be reported within two years of the loss.

To try to respond to the historic claim numbers, come Oct. 1 MPI will open hail-estimating appointments at all of its Winnipeg service centres. Appointments were available for booking starting Tuesday.

Estimating appointments the Westman region will continue through the fall. A July 5 storm brought golf ball-sized hail to the Boissevain and Killarney areas.

About 80 per cent of customers who have a claim have scheduled an appointment with MPI or a repair shop to have the damage to their vehicle assessed, and estimates have been completed for 65 per cent of all storm-related claims opened this summer.

The volatile weather across the Prairies caused more than $1-billion in damages, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Vice-president Aaron Sutherland said the June 9 and 10 storms that hammered southern Manitoba and parts of eastern Saskatchewan caused nearly $1 billion in insured losses alone.

“There was torrential rain, flash flooding, a lot of flooded basements, tens of thousands of residents impacted,” Sutherland said.

The frequency and costs of extreme weather are growing, Sutherland said. Over the last decade, insured losses from extreme weather in Canada have averaged $3.7 billion annually, up from annual losses of $1.4 billion in the previous decade and $883 million in the decade before that.

While no one event will trigger widespread changes in insurance rates, the trend is putting pressure on premiums.

A Statistics Canada report released earlier this month shows 45 per cent of Winnipeg properties are built in areas with a higher risk of flooding. More than 112,000 properties in Winnipeg are in high flood hazard areas, the report says, accounting for the highest number across metropolitan areas in Canada.

Providing incentives for homeowners to make their properties more resilient, revisiting building codes, building homes away from floodplains and looking at city infrastructure can all help prepare municipalities for future events, Sutherland said.

“We’ve historically had some pretty good infrastructure in and around Winnipeg to prevent the type of flood damage that we’re seeing more and more often today. And it’s because we’re seeing more rainfall in shorter periods of time than we ever used to,” he said.

“So what used to be good enough no longer is, and we need to start upgrading our infrastructure for the future.”

In June MPI applied for a 2.38 per cent increase to basic auto insurance rates for the 2027–28 year. In its application to the Public Utilities Board, the Crown corporation cited expected claims costs, day-to-day operating expenses, and anticipated investment income performance as pressures driving the request.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca