CatIQ increases Hurricane Debby loss estimate from flooding in Ontario & Quebec to C$2.8bn

CatIQ, the independent Toronto-based organisation providing industry-wide catastrophe insurance data and a subsidiary of PERILS, has released its fourth industry loss estimate for the flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Debby, which impacted Ontario and Quebec between August 9 and 10, 2024.

The latest estimate, representing the insurance market’s outlook six months after the event, is CAD 2.817 billion.

This marks a slight increase from the third estimate of CAD 2.767 billion, which was issued 90 days after the event. The figure accounts for claims related to both property (residential and commercial) and vehicles (motor).

The updated report from CatIQ offers a detailed breakdown of property and motor losses by FSA (high-resolution CRESTA Zones). CatIQ subscribers also have access to comprehensive meteorological data, including rainfall totals, damage assessments, news reports, and images documenting the event’s impact.

As part of CatIQ’s regular reporting schedule, a fifth market loss update for the remnants of Hurricane Debby will be provided on August 8, 2025, one year after the event concluded.

Hurricane Debby, which began as a tropical depression on August 1, 2024, passed over the western Caribbean and southeastern US before being caught by a large atmospheric trough on August 7.

This trough directed the post-tropical cyclone toward the Great Lakes, bringing significant rainfall to eastern Ontario and southern Quebec.

Between August 8 and 10, over 100 mm of rain fell across a wide region from eastern Lake Ontario, through Montreal, and along the St. Lawrence River toward Quebec City. The hardest-hit areas in southern Quebec experienced more than 200 mm of rain, leading to widespread flooding and significant flood damage.

Caroline Floyd, Director at CatIQ, said: “While Atlantic Canada is the more obvious target for tropical cyclone activity in Canada, southern Ontario and southern Quebec often see the impacts of remnant storms, many of which follow similar paths to Storm Debby. Ushered up the eastern third of the US by the jet stream, these remnant cyclones funnel substantial atmospheric moisture into the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin.

“In fact, since 2010, the insured losses from other remnant tropical storms in Ontario and Quebec have totalled more than CAD 500 million. Prior to Debby, the largest tropical storm-related event for Quebec stemmed from the remnants of Storm Irene (2011), which at the time caused some CAD 101 million in insured losses. For comparison, the rainfall from Irene reached only 68 mm in Montreal, versus Debby’s 154 mm.”

Floyd, continued: “The remnants of Hurricane Debby were especially impactful for residents of Quebec, where more than 75,000 claims for personal property damage were filed. The average personal property claim size was not all that different from the flooding event in southern Ontario in July 2024, but the number of claims filed vastly differs, with Storm Debby generating nearly four times the number of claims as the Toronto flash flooding.”

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