It shouldn’t be the insurance industry’s responsibility to police Canadians’ flood risk, in the eyes of Suzanne Michaud, VP at CAA-Québec.
With overland flood insurance set to gain steam across Canada following the
Insurance Bureau of Canada’s June endorsement, many people living along the banks of rivers and lakes will find insurance either unaffordable or unavailable due to high risk.
Search and compare product listings for Travel insurance from specialty market providers here
“We have a river in an area called Beauce(-Sartigan Regional County), and every two or three years the river decides to overflow,” Michaud said. “It’s almost like a tradition - people plan parties around it. I don’t think any insurer will be willing to offer flood insurance protection there, but I’m not sure the broker or the insurer should be the one to do this job. The government, the municipality could.”
Join us for Flood Risk Summit 2017
Calls recently came from Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to make flood zone maps public in Quebec, but fears about flood-risk driving down property values has prevented the publication of the current maps to-date.
However, Michaud said some major insurers in Quebec have been consulted by the government on flood risk and some maps are available online.
“A broker can do the same thing as anybody who owns a house – they can look online and look at flood zones,” Michaud said. “They can say ‘oh, someone is phoning me from a flood zone area’ and they can give them advice like: it’s not a good idea to redo your basement with a wood floor because the flood endorsement protection is not available.”
However, many have also criticized publicly-available flood mapping as out-of-date.
“Somebody should advise the homebuyers, ‘oh, by the way, you’re in a flood area’,” Michaud commented. “They should be advised not to occupy the basement like the third floor or second floor.”
Related stories:
“This is atrocious customer service”
Storm of hail claims expected in Alberta this June
.jpg)
