By Bruce Rabik – COO, Acera Insurance
I have been fortunate enough to spend the last three decades working at the top levels of Canada’s insurance industry. During that time, I’ve gotten to know many incredible and talented people. Since founding the Canadian Brokers Network in 2002, I have worked with over a thousand professionals from Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario.
I’ve learned quite a few lessons through these experiences and interactions. Perhaps one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is the real reason we do this. I think far too often, when it comes to insurance, people get bogged down by financial numbers. While it’s obviously true financials play a major part in insurance and commerce, the human cost must remain at the forefront.
As an example of this, take a look at the recent and very tragic fires in Jasper, Alberta. If we wanted to look at the tragedy by the numbers, we’d see that over 32,500 hectares or about 80,309 acres, were destroyed. The brave firefighters battled flames over 100 meters high. It has been estimated that the fires caused $880 million worth of damage to the area. They destroyed over a third of the buildings in Jasper. On their own, those numbers are massive, right?
For me, one of the most important statistical numbers is 25,000 and 5,000. The former is the total number of people that had to be evacuated from the area. Meanwhile, the latter number represents the entire population of the town of Jasper. And that is my point. The lives of Jasper’s 5,000 people have been completely upended. Businesses that have stood for decades and provided employment and services are gone. Homes that sheltered families, along with their hopes, dreams and memories, have been burned down to the foundation. Consider for a moment what this means for them. Any sense of normalcy or security the residents of Jasper had is now gone.
The thing is, this is by no means exclusive to the people of Jasper. Anytime a tragedy strikes, no matter the financial costs, the human costs will always be immeasurable. Even on a typical day, we never know if we are meeting someone on the worst day of their lives.
Unfortunately, in Canada, the chances of meeting someone who has been affected by weather events is increasing all the time; the summer of 2024 is now the country’s most destructive season on record, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, with more than $7 billion in insured losses. Along with the Jasper wildfires, flooding in southern Ontario and Quebec and an Alberta hailstorm accounted for the majority of claims. These events all occurred in July and August.
This puts a tremendous strain on our capabilities as an industry and as a society. But as insurance professionals, we can never lose sight of the human cost. We try to help these people as best we can; hopefully, insurance payouts allow people to regain some sliver of a sense of “normal”. Buildings can be replaced and rebuilt. Meanwhile, new memories can always be created. The costs of damages and the number of destroyed structures can always be calculated and curated, but as we’ve come to see, numbers rarely, if ever, tell the whole story.
This is why, in my opinion, and based on my own experience, we must remember that behind each number on the page is the suffering someone has had to endure. Treasured memories were destroyed, livelihoods taken away, and homes gone in an instant. Some of those affected have to figure out new places to live. I am grateful that the industry to which I’ve devoted my life and career is able to help so many people through the worst times of their lives. At the end of the day, that should be what the insurance industry is all about.
