BASEMENT FLOODING PROTECTION PROGRAM: As climate experts forecast more frequent extreme rain events, Toronto is working towards protecting properties by modernizing its storm drainage system

What Canada’s largest city is doing to help reduce flood insurance claims

“With its Basement Flooding Protection Program, Toronto’s city government brought in a new standard of accommodating a one-in-100-year storm instead of a one-in-five-year storm,” wrote Greg Meckbach in an article published by the Canadian Underwriter.

“The program was expanded to cover the entire city in 2013. This is because on July 8, 2013, a late afternoon thunderstorm in the Toronto area, which lasted more than an hour, caused Canada’s fourth most expensive insured loss ever at nearly $1 billion — mainly from sewer backup claims.

“To consider the entire city as being at risk “was a really good way to go about” planning basement flooding protection projects, said Glenn McGillivray, managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. “Toronto is really showing a lot of leadership in the area. It’s kind of a risk management approach to viewing the issue of urban flooding in Toronto.”

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Image credit: Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction