Are excessive climate occasions the brand new regular in Canada?
Following yesterday’s torrential rains and power cuts, residents of the larger Toronto space (GTA) would say ‘sure,’ as do 92% of Canadian enterprise leaders polled for a brand new KPMG Canada analysis report.
“As seen from yesterday’s flooding in the GTA, we gained’t at all times see these excessive climate emergencies coming. Canadian firms should take a proactive strategy to evaluate their insurance coverage wants associated to excessive climate and local weather change,” Doron Telem, a companion and Nationwide ESG Chief for KPMG Canada, tells Canadian Underwriter.
“This includes conducting thorough threat assessments to establish potential climate-related threats and utilizing historic knowledge and local weather fashions to foretell future occasions. Corporations ought to decide the vulnerability of their bodily belongings and operations to those dangers and assess the potential monetary impression.”
The KPMG ballot additionally finds that 92% of respondents expressed considerations that their firms could be hit by a climate-related occasion this 12 months, with 21% saying they’re ‘extraordinarily involved.’
The survey fielded between June 5 and June 15, 2024, was answered by enterprise house owners or C-suite executives at 350 Canadian firms. And totally 30% of respondents word climate-related occasions led to insurance coverage coverages being cancelled or important value will increase.
“Reviewing current insurance coverage insurance policies to make sure sufficient protection for climate-related dangers is essential, and interesting with insurers to debate particular local weather dangers will help tailor insurance policies accordingly. Implementing local weather resilience measures and documenting these efforts can probably decrease insurance coverage premiums,” Telem provides.
“Common situation planning, staying knowledgeable about regulatory modifications, and interesting with stakeholders are additionally important steps. By following these tips, firms can higher perceive their publicity to local weather dangers and safe applicable insurance coverage protection to mitigate potential impacts.”
Extra knowledge
In different ballot findings, 57% of KPMG Canada’s survey respondents say local weather occasions immediately impacted enterprise operations – together with lack of energy, water provide, communications connectivity, or different utilities.
What’s extra, 56% of respondents say excessive climate occasions hit their profitability, with 41% seeing income losses.
And, 50% of respondents report misplaced productiveness because of impacts from local weather occasions, whereas 47% say they’ve skilled both provide chain disruptions or damaged provide chains.
Function picture by iStock/davidfillion
