Why some Canadian insurance companies are bringing in a wildfire tactical team

When Joelle Fraser-McGaghey had to evacuate her home during the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, she only had a few minutes to pack before her family had to get out the door.

Trying to pull outdoor furniture away from her house was not at the top of her list.

"Honestly, I'm not thinking 'Should I remove that propane tank?' I'm thinking, 'Let's get my kids out of here and let's get us to safety,'" she said in an interview.

Insurance companies have realized homeowners aren't necessarily thinking about last-minute fire prevention when they're packing up to evacuate. So a growing number are paying a U.S.-based firm to take on that responsibility.

Fraser-McGaghey's insurance provider, Economical, is one of several Canadian insurers — including Aviva, Intact and Gore Mutual — that have hired Montana-based Wildfire Defense Systems to provide "loss intervention services."

The company sends field staff into communities when a wildfire is looming to move patio furniture away from walls, clean out gutters, set up sprinklers and otherwise try to keep homes from catching fire. 

"I thought, 'Any way to prevent someone else losing their home — why not?'" said Fraser-McGaghey.

The company is active across 22 U.S. states but started working on behalf of insurers in B.C. and Alberta for the first time this year. 

"After last year's wildfire season … what we wanted was a company that could provide preventative services," said Rosa Nelson, Intact's vice-president of sales and business development for Alberta and the Prairies. 

Hiring WDS is just one example of the lengths insurance companies are going to mitigate the costs of extreme weather — something that's a growing threat to their bottom line.

Just as insurers once advocated for seatbelts to reduce the number of payouts from car crashes, companies are now funding community-level fire-prevention grants and supporting research centres devoted to catastrophic loss prevention and climate change adaptation. 

"If you can spend money to save money, that's what you do," said Anne Kleffner, a professor of risk management at the University of Calgary. 

WDS, based in Bozeman, Mont., was founded in 2001 as a contractor for the U.S. Forest Service, before starting to work on behalf of the insurance industry in 2008. The company's grown to include 350 field staff who are dispatched from its head office and from regional centres in California, Colorado, Idaho and Oregon when fires strike.

The employees aren't there to fight the wildfires but rather are trying to keep sparks out of insured homes.