Are world events affecting religious insurance pricing in Canada?

Canada is not immune to attacks on religious institutions, but such attacks locally and around the world are not affecting insurance pricing here, an industry expert tells Canadian Underwriter.

A current climate of religious intolerance has led to various attacks or damage to places of worship, such as churches, mosques and synagogues in Canada and worldwide. CU reached out to Ecclesiastical Insurance — which insures all world faiths — for comment on the insurance impact for carriers of faith-based organizations.

“We haven’t really seen anything in terms of significant claims, either frequency or severity, related to any current conflict, certainly not here in Canada,” says Colin Robertson, Ecclesiastical’s chief risk management and customer officer. “In the grand scheme of things, these are relatively isolated, one-off incidents.

“We’re just not seeing any stress in the business from a claims perspective because of something that’s happening in another part of the world.”

Why is Canada not as affected as other countries?

“Canada is a nation that’s been built on immigration, we are a multi-ethnic society and we’re a tolerant society,” Robertson suggests. “We enjoy many freedoms and I think people respect that and try to uphold that…

“You hear about isolated things in the news…but it doesn’t feel like it’s a systemic problem…If something happens, sometimes it becomes more newsworthy.”

Another possible reason Canada is relatively immune to religious intolerance is that places of worship can sometimes serve as thriving hubs within their communities.

For example, some religious groups will rent their facilities out to the community, even to those of different religions or to secular organizations. Religious institutions may also run daycares, ‘out of the cold’ programs and food banks that serve both the religious community and community at large.

“It becomes a valued resource and because it’s a valued resource, people want to protect it,” Robertson says. “Why would you want to damage that?”

Increasingly frequent and severe weather events, along with things like climate change, resilience and sustainability, are more of a concern to property insurers.

“We have had large fires in the past, and some of those have been arson in places of worship, for sure,” Robertson says. “But the frequency is very low.

“Clearly, the severity is high, versus where you have a potential Cat event where the frequency is high but also sometimes the severity can be quite high as well.”

Investing time and effort into risk management can help protect faith-based organizations. This could involve common-sense approaches such as reporting any suspicious activity and implementing security measures, such as intrusion, smoke and fire alarms.

“It’s not about spending tens of thousands of dollars on huge security [systems] and all this kind of stuff,” Robertson says. “It’s more about being watchful, involved in the community, becoming a valued resource and self-policing.”

Feature image by iStock.com/Stephen Barnes