In the wake of a devastating vehicle attack at a Vancouver Philipino community festival, the City of Toronto took action to shore up public safety at its own events.
A $2.1 million boost to festival security funding will be rolled out this year, aimed at helping organizers cover rising costs tied to safety and emergency preparedness.
The funds – reallocated from city resources – will flow through Toronto’s Special Events Stabilization Initiative, supporting measures like private security, paramedic presence, and hostile vehicle mitigation strategies.
In the world of event insurance, the shift is already having ripple effects.
Heather Moyer, underwriting director at K&K Insurance Canada, called the announcement good news adding that it is already bringing changes to the struggling sector.
According to Moyer, many festivals are operating on razor-thin margins in the wake of the pandemic. With volunteer numbers down, crowds not fully returned, and disposable income stretched, organizers are often financially overwhelmed – and safety mandates, while necessary, add yet another cost burden.
“We're seeing a lot of festivals closing their doors that have been running for many years,” she said.
City-funded safety support, she says, could be the difference between certain events surviving or disappearing altogether – and that has direct implications for insurers.
With improved access to resources like barricades and emergency services, more festivals will be able to meet the minimum safety standards required by specialized insurers. As a result, not only will more events remain operational, but they’ll also be better equipped to prevent claims.
“That means they'll hopefully have a lower loss ratio, which means that their insurance will be cheaper,” she added.
For specialized carriers, Moyer explained, prevention is everything.
Her team already requires stringent safety measures – like concrete road barricades for parades – and without those, they won’t take on the risk.
These requirements, she says, aren’t arbitrary – they’re directly tied to legal exposure and the potential for serious claims. Moyer explains that in the event of an incident, like a vehicle ramming through a crowd, organizers face heightened liability because attendees are classified as invitees under the law – a group to whom hosts owe the highest duty of care.
“If you don’t have barricades, and you don’t have police blocking the roads, it’s hard to argue that you did everything you could.”
Failing to meet that duty can result in severe injury claims that significantly damage a festival’s loss ratio – a key metric insurers use to determine risk. Moyer says that, when major claims are filed, it becomes harder for organizers to obtain coverage in the future, and even if they can, it often comes with much higher premiums.
Even though there are some insurance companies that might be willing to underwrite those risks, their number is decreasing.
“After what happened, you’ll see fewer and fewer companies willing to do that,” Moyer said.
The impact of Toronto’s decision is already being felt on the underwriting side. While some insurers may wait to see long-term outcomes, Moyer says the city’s funding announcement is already influencing coverage availability and pricing conditions.
Previously, Moyer’s firm had been losing some business to competitors that were willing to offer coverage without strict barricade requirements.
While insurers in the specialty market often operate with different terms and risk tolerances, there has been a noticeable shift. More carriers, she says, are now aligning around tighter safety expectations, making those conditions increasingly standard rather than optional.
With more insurers moving toward stricter safety expectations – including mandatory barricades – organizers have fewer options if they can’t meet those thresholds. Moyer says that’s exactly why municipal funding has become critical.
“They’re really caught between a rock and a hard place,” she explained. “Not only do the barricades cost a lot of money, but they’re very expensive to move – they require road closures for longer periods. Some organizers are using double police cars instead, parking them as makeshift barriers since they can be rolled away more easily afterward.”
Beyond barricades, insurers are also tightening expectations around general event security. Moyer notes a growing trend toward expanded perimeter fencing and increased on-site security presence, both of which drive up operational costs – especially for smaller events.
“That’s where the city stepping in really makes a difference,” she added. “Because without that support, many festivals just couldn’t afford to comply – and that puts everyone at risk, including their ability to get insured at all.”
