This story is part of The Energy Mix’s partnership with Small Change Fund.

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Extreme weather this summer caused more than $1.8 billion in insured losses during 10 events across Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, the Insurance Bureau of Canada reports. And those costs will continue to rise.

“The growing frequency, severity, and financial cost of these events demands that we rethink how we can better protect communities moving forward and increase investment in resilience now,” Aaron Sutherland, the bureau’s vice-president, Pacific and Western, said in a release.

The 10 events over the summer included hail, extreme wind, and flooding. The most expensive exceeded $900 million in insured losses from a two-day storm in Saskatchewan and Manitoba June 9-10 that included tornadoes, hail, damaging winds, torrential rain, and flash flooding. A three-day event July 4-6 brought flooding, hail, wind, and more than $270 million in insured losses in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Northern Ontario.

“Hailstones the size of billiard balls were reported in some areas, as well as 100 millimetres of rain and strong wind gusts,” IBC writes about the storm.

The Edmonton area alone saw five or six catastrophic events that caused more than $30 million in damages, reports CBC. Sutherland told the national broadcaster the city’s sewer and storm infrastructure is aging and was unable to handle the amount of precipitation. Throughout the summer, homeowners in the city repeatedly reported damage from flooded basements, backed up wastewater, and overwhelmed sump pumps.

Insured costs from extreme weather have been rising over the past decade and now average about $3.7 billion each year country-wide, up from average annual losses of $1.4 billion in the decade before, IBC said. Nationally, Canada’s costliest year ever was in 2024, when insured losses from extreme weather exceeded $9.4 billion.

To protect Canadians from severe weather risks, IBC calls for “all orders of government” to take immediate steps like restricting development away from areas of high flooding and wildfire risk, requiring cost-effective community-level mitigation measures, and investing in resilient infrastructure.

In another recent release, the bureau draws attention to a new study showing that homeowners in areas with high hailstorm risks can reduce their insurance premiums by up to 50% by investing in hail-resistant roofing and siding.

Sutherland told CBC that municipalities need to prioritize upgrading infrastructure to avoid damages from future flooding events.

“The world is changing and we’re going to see more rainfall and more extreme weather events—not less—moving forward,” he said. “We do recognize there’s a cost, but there’s a greater cost in cleaning up $1.8 billion [in the Prairies] just this year alone.”