The City of Edmonton is paying out a record amount to drivers whose vehicles were damaged during the city's plague of potholes this spring.

The city paid out a whopping $464,000 to about 900 drivers, half of those who submitted a claim.

Compare that to last year when the city paid out a miserly $27,000.

The city accepted many more claims than usual, because officials knew many of the potholes were in chronic spots, said Don Marshall, the city's director of risk management.

Most years the city sees only 200 claims, with the city usually denying between 75 to 80 per cent of them.