Icicles hang from a downed power line on a residential street in Toronto as over 250,000 people face up to 72 hours without electricity after a storm brought heavy ice rain, on Sunday, December 22, 2013. Ice, floods and thunderstorms made 2013 the worst year ever for insured losses in Canada. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
January 20, 2014 - 10:40 AM
Ice, floods and thunderstorms made 2013 the worst year ever for insured losses in Canada.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) says the December ice storms in southern Ontario and eastern Canada caused more than $200 million worth of insured losses, pushing the total payouts to policy holders for the year to $3.2 billion.
IBC CEO Don Forgeron (forge-er-on) says the terrible effects of the weather hit Canadians and the insurance industry hard.
The largest disaster continues to be the torrential rains and floods that soaked southern Alberta in June, causing $1.74 billion in insured damage.
Flash floods in Toronto the following month caused an estimated $940 million in damages.
Severe thunderstorms in parts of Ontario and Quebec in June and July resulted in about $250 million in insurance payouts.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014