August 2024 hailstorm caused $3.25B in damage in Calgary: IBC

Hundreds of homes in northeast Calgary were damaged in a severe hailstorm in August, 2024

The estimated cost of a hailstorm that tore through Calgary in August 2024 has reached $3.25 billion.

According to stats released by the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) on Tuesday, the Aug. 5 storm is the second-costliest disaster in Canadian history. It resulted in more than 130,000 insurance claims.

The total cost is up more than $400 million – from $2.8 billion – from IBC’s last estimates in September.

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IBC says the majority of auto insurance claims have been completed, making up more than half of the claims from the hailstorm.

The damage to vehicles from the storm is now estimated to be nearly $1 billion, with roughly half of the vehicles that were damaged being total losses.

Additionally, nearly 60,000 homes in Calgary were affected by the storm. The majority of repairs are expected to be completed this spring and summer, after building supplies and contractor services were stretched thin following the storm.

IBC added that last summer was the most expensive one on record for Canada due to catastrophic weather events, with 228,000 insurance claims and $8 billion in insured damage. Half of that total, $4.1 billion, occurred in Alberta.

“Impacted customers have seen progress on their insurance claims following last summer’s hailstorm, but there’s still a lot of work to do, as repairing damaged homes and businesses on a scale this large will take time,” said Aaron Sutherland, the vice president of the Pacific and Western region for IBC.

A recent analysis by Aon showed how Calgary’s “staggering urban expansion in recent decades” has exposed more residential areas to damage.

“Analysis of satellite imagery … shows that since 1984, when Calgary had roughly half of its current population, northern outskirts expanded significantly, primarily with newly built residential neighbourhoods aimed to provide more affordable housing to the growing number of residents,” the Aon report reads.

Aon states that if the storm had happened 40 years ago, it would have affected mostly agricultural land and the property loss would have been much lower.

IBC said in 2020, the same area of north Calgary was hit by a hailstorm that resulted in $1.2 billion in insured losses.