Insurance Brokers Association of B.C. (IBABC) chair Andrew Janzen says insurers have not cleared their claims backlog from the 2021 Fraser Valley floods.
Speaking with CBC News, the insurance broker said insurance companies are still faced with the claims volume 28 months on.
“Extreme weather is definitely creating challenges from an insurance standpoint,” Janzen was quoted as saying. “This does translate to fewer options and increased costs for consumers.”
It also appears that the federal government’s portion of the payments under the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program has been trickling, with less than half (40%) disbursed after over two years.
According to a report by The Canadian Press, disaster aid from the program takes seven years on average to flow, based on data between 1970 and 2016. In fact, according to the numbers, six claims from before 2016 are yet to be finalized.
Last week, it was announced that January’s deep freeze in Western Canada caused an estimated $180-plus million in insured damage.
At the time, the Insurance Bureau of Canada's national director for consumer and industry relations, Rob de Pruis, noted that approximately 70% of all claims from the deep freeze were personal property claims.
Now, in an interview with The Early Edition, de Pruis said $140 million of the insured damages came from British Columbia.
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