Canada’s property and casualty insurers have paid out more than $1 billion in claims damage in each of the past four years, and water damage has now surpassed fire damage as a chief concern for insurers.
IBC statistics show that water-related losses currently account for 40% of personal property insurance claims. Fire-related losses, by comparison, account for 20% of insurers’ claims. These water losses arise from increasingly intense rainstorms that overwhelm municipal stormwater and sewer systems, causing basement flooding or water from outside the house to seep into the basement.
“This [Rain Barrel] program is designed to help reduce the stress on Stratford's stormwater and sewer systems,” IBC says. “Rain barrels can have a big impact on dealing with excess water, especially when a whole community comes together to use them.”
The Stratford project is a follow-up to a similar rain barrel project conducted in Wingham, Ontario. The Wingham project led to a 5% reduction in the ratio of rainwater to volume of water pumped at the sewer treatment plant between 2009 and 2010.
The rain barrels themselves may not have been completely responsible for the results in Wingham, Ontario. “In the process of installing barrels, 70% of the community’s downspouts were disconnected from the sewer system, which meant less rainwater flowing into that system,” the IBC acknowledged in a summary report on the Wingham project.
The rain barrels in the Wingham project were projected to divert a maximum of more than 200,000 litres from the town’s stormwater and sewer systems. In fact, this volume was not captured because residents did not empty out the barrels after rainfalls, IBC observed.
The lessons learned in Wingham can be applied in Stratford, P.E.I. with the help of brokers.
Brokers have an important role to play in educating their clients about the rain barrel program, and what their clients can do to make sure the program is successful, said Amanda Dean, IBC’s director of external and government relations for the Atlantic Canada region.
“Absolutely, brokers have a role,” she said. “Several brokers came out to our launch event. We are sharing information every step of the way with the broker community on the island, especially through the IBAPEI. They have been very supportive. It will be good research that brokers throughout Canada will be able to use.”
Canadian brokers are helping insurers introduce some old-fashioned technology to help prevent water damage to clients’ homes in Stratford, Prince Edward Island – the rain barrel.
