2024 NatCat rebuild efforts: Where are we one year later?

Canada’s property and casualty insurers have resolved a vast majority of the 250,000 insurance claims following four major natural catastrophes (NatCats) over a five-week stretch last summer.

But in Jasper, Alta., claims resolution continues to be a tough slog. Jasper’s rebuild is going at about half the pace as that of the other NatCats, since the rules for rebuilding in the town’s location in a remote national park area fall under three different levels of government, Canada’s insurers report.

At more than $9.1 billion, last year’s insured NatCat losses were the highest in the country’s history.

“The sheer volume of claims resulting from the 2024 events is staggering, representing a 443% increase compared to the 20-year average,” the Insurance Bureau of Canada reports recently in its new, In Brief report, 2024 Summer of Catastrophe across Canada.

“This placed significant strain on the capacity of claims departments at many of Canada’s property and casualty insurers.”

One year later, between 86% and 96% of claims have been resolved for three of the four major NatCats last summer, IBC reports, citing the most recent insured loss figures from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ) and other data on the industry’s claims response.

IBC reports winding up a large majority of claims for the following three of last year’s serious NatCat events:

• 92% of claims resulting from the July 16, 2024, flash flooding in Toronto and southern Ontario have been closed. This storm resulted in almost $900 million in insured damage.
• 86% of claims resulting from the Aug. 5, 2024 hailstorm in Calgary have been closed. The storm caused $3.2 billion in insured losses, making it the costliest hail event in Canadian history.
• 96% of all claims resulting from the remnants of Hurricane Debby in August 2024 have been closed. By the time the hurricane reached Canada, it was an extratropical cyclone strong enough to cause massive flooding in Eastern Canada and southern Quebec. It caused $2.8 billion in insured damage and ranks as the costliest insured event in Quebec’s history, surpassing the 1998 ice storm.

Jasper, IBC says, is a different story.

“Following a July 2024 wildfire, the rebuilding of Jasper is under way, though it will take additional time due to Jasper’s remote location and unique environmental considerations within a national park,” IBC reports. “Many Jasper residents continue working through the process of securing permits to begin the reconstruction of their properties.”

As of the publication time of IBC’s Oct. 20, 2025 report, 106 (30%) of the 358 properties that were destroyed in Jasper have a rebuilding permit, IBC says.

“And most of these property owners have started construction,” IBC states in its report. “The claims closure rate stands at 56%, which is comparable to other large wildfire events in Canada at the one-year mark.”

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At the National Insurance Conference of Canada in September, Kevin Lea, vice president of the Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta, reported very slow progress for the rebuild.

“There’s a lot of red tape,” Lea said on Sept. 18, referring to the “triple layer of regulation” involved in the Jasper wildfire rebuild. “As of a couple of weeks ago, there have only been five structures rebuilt in Jasper since the fire last year. So, that’s a really low number on the homeowners front.”  

David Gambrill

David has twice served as Canadian Underwriter’s senior editor, both from 2005 to 2012, and again from 2017 to the present.