Free weather-monitoring portal to help Frank Cowan municipal clients meet minimum maintenance standards

Princeton, Ontario-based Frank Cowan Company has added a complimentary, municipal weather-monitoring portal to its website designed to help municipalities monitor and record the weather and actions taken in relation to the forecast.

Called Snowman, the portal seeks to “help our municipal clients meet the weather-monitoring component as set out in the revised Ontario Minimum Maintenance Standards,” Barb Szychta, director of risk management for Frank Cowan Company, says in a statement.

The company provides specialized insurance programs, including risk management and claims services for municipalities and public service.

The portal will be part of the company’s Risk Management Centre of Excellence website. All municipal clients currently have unlimited access to the centre.

Last January, Ontario’s transportation minister signed a regulation amending the Minimum Maintenance Standards for Municipal Highways, under the Municipal Act, 2001, notes a bulletin issued by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

The bulletin cites the regulation’s weather-monitoring section as stating: a new minimum standard is added that requires a municipality to monitor current weather, as well as weather forecasted, to occur in the next 24 hours: once a shift or three times a day from Oct. 1 to April 30; and once a day from May 1 to Sept. 30.

The amendments follow a decision by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2011, Giuliani v. Halton (Municipality), which centred on a motor vehicle accident alleged to have been caused by snow and ice on the roadway.

“The trial judge found that the municipality had failed to keep the roadway in a reasonable state of repair and that the (minimum maintenance standards, MMS) did not provide a defence in the circumstances,” the bulletin states. The court further found the MMS did not purport to cover every circumstance that might arise in the course of maintaining roadways and, in particular, that s. 5 of the MMS did not address standards for avoiding or preventing ice formation.

The amendments fill in the gaps primarily at issue in Giuliani by providing minimum standards for both preventing ice formation and weather monitoring, the bulletin notes.

Frank Cowan Company reports the portal is being launched during winter maintenance season, a time when municipalities experience most of their challenges associated with adverse road conditions.

Once logged in, road supervisors and crews can see weather reports and check localized forecasts for conditions that may impact their areas, the company statement notes. The weather report and users confirmed acceptance of current weather conditions are logged and recorded should they need to be recalled in a claim situation even years later.

“Claim awards have increased substantially as municipalities are brought into more and more court settlements because they are perceived as having deep pockets,” Derek Sarluis, vice president of claims for Frank Cowan Company, notes in the statement. “If a municipality is found to be even one percent negligent, they could be accountable for paying the majority of a large award under Joint and Several Liability,” Sarluis says.

The portal is located at excellence.frankcowan.com