In the face of increasing risks from climate change and extreme weather events, Wawanesa Mutual Insurance has recognized the urgent need to support communities in becoming more climate resilient.
This realization led to the creation of Wawanesa Climate Champions, a community impact program that supports individuals and organizations working to mitigate, and help communities adapt to, climate-related risks.
By partnering with various organizations and investing $2 million annually, Wawanesa has shown its commitment to fostering climate leadership, protecting vulnerable ecosystems, and assisting those on the front lines of climate action.
Selena Hinds (pictured), vice president of marketing and communications, has offered her insights on Wawanesa’s climate resilience efforts:
One of the top issues facing all of us is the growing risk of extreme weather caused by climate change. 2022 was the third worst year for insured losses from severe weather in Canadian history, coming in at $3.1 billion, and we have this year seen wildfires across Canada disrupt thousands of lives.
That’s why our Wawanesa Climate Champions program focuses our charitable giving on helping people and communities be more climate resilient - a pressing need everywhere our members live.
Wawanesa Climate Champions is a people-focused approach that will provide $2 million annually to organizations helping people on the front lines of climate change.
We’re supporting farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and conservationists through our partnerships with WWF, Farmers for Climate Solutions, and the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources.
We’re helping the people who help us all prevent disasters from happening, and recover when they do happen, through our support of the Canadian Red Cross and our Community Wildfire Prevention Grants.
Finally, we’re lifting up the next generation of climate leaders to help us all be more resilient, supporting Youth Climate Lab and Nature Conservancy of Canada.
For over 125 years, we have been about supporting people and communities. It’s only fitting that we continue this focus as we turn our attention to climate change.
We want to increase the climate resilience of communities across Canada by supporting people on the frontlines helping to mitigate [the impacts] and adapt to climate change.
The program supports national organizations that have strong local impact, with a focus on areas where there is a larger risk of catastrophic weather events.
We’re supporting projects that mitigate against wind, water, and fire events, as well as projects that protect wetlands, peatlands, forests, grasslands, watersheds, floodplains, and farmlands. Our support will help with capturing and storing carbon, planting, flood prevention, fire prevention, wind damage reduction and climate education.
Taken together, these actions will ultimately help capture carbon and help communities adapt to the negative impacts of climate change.
As one of Canada’s largest mutual companies, we have no shareholders to pay out, only members to protect.
We are deeply committed to strengthening the investments we make in the communities where our members, brokers, and employees live. It’s been this way since 1896, when Wawanesa was formed to help prairie farmers find affordable insurance for their farming operations.
Climate change is here, and it is creating more extreme weather, resulting in more catastrophic loss events.
As a leading property and casualty insurer in Canada, we want to help our members and their communities be more resilient in the face of climate change.
In addition to our Climate Champions program, we have also introduced two new insurance products that help people build back stronger following a loss, including our Stronger Homes product, which enables people to rebuild using stronger shingles and siding, as well as our Eco-Friendly product, which helps people make their homes more energy efficient.
Wawanesa is also advocating for a more resilient country through Climate Proof Canada and the federal government’s climate adaptation work with the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Using social media and educational materials, we are promoting practical ways for people to prevent or mitigate the impacts of severe weather.
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