2020 Agenda

The conference will begin with an overview of catastrophes that occurred in 2019. This comprehensive review will include a chronology of events, geographic footprints of impacted areas, related media and insured loss estimates provided by CatIQ.

Corporate leadership is clearly seen as a critical element in responding to the significant economic challenges presented by climate change. Such leadership can serve both as a catalyst for, and in conjunction with, emerging government policies. Barbara Zvan from the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance will speak to the Panel’s recent thought-provoking recommendations on a national strategy, and Roger Beauchemin, President & CEO of Addenda Capital, will speak to how a progressive insurer and investor is working to leverage its position to address both the risk and opportunity sides of the climate change equation.

We tend to focus on the financial cost of disasters; but so often, the psychological and social costs are forgotten. This session will host speakers from the Canadian Red Cross, Stan Darling Insurance, and Desjardins. The panelists will speak to their experiences during disasters, and will include their best practices for claims teams, homeowners and first responders to overcome the emotional stress of working in and living through these events.

As communities continue to be overwhelmed by flooding, there is an increasing need to find solutions to compliment traditional grey infrastructure systems that have been the primary method for managing overland water. Green infrastructure uses natural vegetative systems and technologies to provide a number of water management solutions, and used in conjunction with grey infrastructure, can help mitigate the devastating impacts of flooding. This session will discuss new methodologies being implemented to achieve flood resilient design for communities. Moderator: Dwayne Torrey, Director, Construction and Infrastructure Standards, CSA Group.

As we near the fourth anniversary of Canada’s costliest disaster, the Fort McMurray wildfire, we will hear experts speak to the rebuild. This session will be moderated by Rob de Pruis from IBC, who is Director, Consumer & Industry Relations, Western. Andrew Ross, SVP, Operations Canada of J.S. Held ULC is confirmed to speak. Stay tuned as we confirm the speakers for this session.

This session will address how risk assessments are done within the emergency management profession, particularly errors and traps that risk assessors often fall prey to. These include using equations that incorrectly formulate risk, the importance of rare events, and the important role of ethics in selecting metrics. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Aaida Mamuji, Assistant Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, York University. Representatives from Public Safety Canada and Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management are confirmed to speak.

The response to flooding events in Canada is frequent and expensive. It is becoming more important for the government to remove the risk or apply resilient methods to create sustainable communities. This panel will explore the perspectives from different levels of government around decisions to stay put or move out. Discussions will be focused on strategic retreats and buyouts, flood mapping, and infrastructure investment. Craig Stewart, VP, Federal Affairs, IBC, will moderate the session.

As losses due to severe weather become more acute, for several reasons including a warming climate, it will be increasingly necessary for all of society – including the (re)insurance industry - to work together to, among other things, ensure that resilience measures are baked in to where and how we build/rebuild going forward. In this session, we will look at why resilience makes sense from a benefit/cost perspective, looking at the results of analysis which finds that the benefits of adding resilience measures to how we build/retrofit far outweigh the initial costs. The session will then look at what the (re)insurance industry would have to do in order to ensure that resilience is incorporated into insurers claims’ responses by considering the issue of policy wordings and reinsurance considerations and the challenges that surround making this happen.

This panel will feature different views from experts on how Canada can prepare for and increase resiliency to a major earthquake. Charles Scawthorn will speak to the ICLR study on the possible fire damage following a major earthquake in Montreal. We will then hear from Nathalie Sirois of Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) regarding the results of an extensive study on earthquake risk in Canada which includes exposures, rates, take-up rates, individual policy forms and how fire following is handled. Finally, Greg Lowe from Aon will provide the social, physical and financial resilience lessons learned from the 2011 events in New Zealand and Japan.

Escalating climate risk across Canada requires a collaborative and systemic national effort to protect Canadian homes and businesses through resilient infrastructure. This effort should both make existing infrastructure resilient to climate risk and should deploy new infrastructure to increase resilience of Canadian communities. Although all orders of government must collaborate in leading this process, there is also a role for the private sector in both sharing risk data, incenting investment through insurance pricing and through partnering in investments. Join leaders in this field for this informative signature panel. Moderator of the panel will be Kelly Gillis, Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Communities at Infrastructure Canada. Confirmed speakers include: Nikhil da Victoria Lobo, Head Americas, Public Sector Solutions, Swiss Re; Lisa Dickson, Associate Principal and Director of Resilience for the Americas, Arup; and Matt Gemmel, Manager, Policy and Research, FCM.

As Canadians are getting more impacted by catastrophic events, the need for efficient communication tools for preparedness and recovery is increasing. This session will bring together representatives from the insurance community and from local governments to explore existing and emerging communication tools. Our panelists will share their recent hands-on experience on preparedness and protection campaigns, new tools for lines of communication between the insured and their insurance company and post-disaster communication between residents and their local government.

After a catastrophic event, the first 48 hours of a carrier’s response is paramount and critical in determining the success of the overall event response. Regardless of past experiences, every event will have unique characteristics based on geographic location, challenges with inspections, severities of losses and the expectations of the communities affected. The panel discussion will look to address the following: the carrier’s perspective - an insurance adjusters’ optimal response, insurance adjuster's perspective – a carrier’s optimal response, and best partnership practices in the first 48 hours.