Wildfires Are Driving Canadian Home Ownership Costs Higher

A joint study from Wahi and MyChoice analyzes real estate and insurance data, revealing how home insurance premiums have risen in some housing markets prone to wildfires.

By Josh Sherman | 3 minute read

Discussion around Canadian housing affordability is often focused on supply and demand, but the climate is also driving real estate costs up in markets across the country.

Monthly home insurance costs are soaring for Canadian homebuyers and owners in some of the country’s wildfire hotspots.

In fact, in Kamloops, B.C. — one of the Canadian cities facing the highest risk of wildfires this year — insurance premiums almost doubled between 2023 and 2025. The average annual insurance premium in Kamloops now works out to nearly a tenth (9%) of a typical mortgage payment on a home in the city, roughly five times the national average.

These are just some of the findings from a new co-authored report from Wahi, a leading Canadian real estate platform, and MyChoice, a top insurance-rate aggregator.

“This report demonstrates the myriad forces affecting housing affordability in Canada beyond supply and demand, such as carrying costs,” says Wahi Economist Ryan McLaughlin. “It’s also another example of how data empowers homebuyers to make informed decisions, budget, and manage expectations.”

The joint report arrives at a time when Canada is experiencing some of the worst wildfires in history. The past two wildfire seasons have been especially devastating for Canada, according to the Canadian Climate Institute: 2023 was the most destructive on record — when an area larger than three Maritime provinces combined was razed — and 2024 ranked sixth. 

With wildfires continuing to increase in frequency and intensity across the country, the latest report from Wahi and MyChoice analyzes real estate and insurance data across the more than 20 local Canadian housing markets where these incidents are anticipated to be most severe.

To demonstrate the potential costs of these incidents to homebuyers, the report shows how insurance premiums in wildfire-exposed markets are evolving relative to overall home ownership costs per month across the 21 Canadian cities with the highest risk of wildfires in 2025

Other Key Findings: 

• In Medicine Hat, Alberta, the average monthly home insurance premium amounts to nearly one-fifth (19%) of the typical mortgage payments on a home — the highest of any of the 21 cities analyzed. The national average is 2%.

   

• The region of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, trailed Medicine Hat, with home insurance premiums equal to about 16% of typical mortgage payments. In 2016, Alberta’s largest wildfire evacuation in history took place in the Fort McMurray area, as close to 90,000 residents fled. The region has experienced upwards of 60 wildfires so far this year.

   

• In four other cities — Prince George, B.C., Timmins, Ont., Kenora Ont., and Lethbridge, AB, home insurance premiums work out to a tenth or more of the average local monthly mortgage payments.

   

• From May 2023 to May 2025, Kamloops saw the most significant increase in the average annual home insurance premium (98%), followed by Regina (59%), Kelowna (52%), and Victoria (44%).

   

• While home insurance expenses in some markets skyrocketed, property values broadly trended upwards as well, which explains some of the inflation. For example, Kamloops values climbed by about 10% in two years. In fact, over the study period, home prices in all but one of the Canadian wildfire hot spots increased. In Kenora, the index value of a home declined by about 11%.

   

• Represented as a share of monthly mortgage payments, home insurance premiums increased by the most in Kamloops, B.C., by 5 percentage points.

   

• Nationally, the share of monthly home insurance premiums did not change relative to mortgage payments between 2023 and 2025. While monthly insurance premiums spiked by an average of 12% during this time, in actual dollars this change amounted to an increase of $9 per month.

Methodology:

The report examined thousands of real homeowner quotes generated through MyChoice between January and June 2025 and compared them with the same period in 2023. For consistency, the analysis focused on quotes reflecting a standardized homeowner profile: a 35-year-old male or female with a clean claim history, currently insured, non-smoker, living in a semi-detached or detached three- to four-bedroom home (2,000–2,500 square feet). Each property was assumed to have monitored fire and burglar alarms, at least one fire extinguisher, a $1,000 deductible, $1,000,000 liability coverage, and an Enhanced Water Protection package. By combining the MyChoice dataset with the RPS-Wahi Home Value Estimates the report was able to quantify how wildfire risk translates into insurance cost changes and overall housing affordability pressures across Canadian cities. To illustrate this, the monthly insurance-to-mortgage payment ratio for each city was calculated, factoring in local home value estimates, standard mortgage assumptions (five-year fixed term, 20% downpayment and the prevailing interest rates for 2023 and 2025), and the average home insurance premiums — providing a clear picture of how rising insurance costs affect homeowners’ monthly budgets.