With the hail season soon approaching, residents of Calgary’s northeast communities are speaking out about how the weather trend puts them at a disadvantage amid an already cumbersome affordability crisis. 

On May 16, residents held a press conference in Skyview to bring attention to the unaffordable insurance quotes and repair costs being handed out to homeowners living in hail-prone neighbourhoods. 

Residents from Cityscape, Cornerstone, Castleridge, Falconridge, Saddle Ridge, Taradale and Martindale came together to share the same story: being overcharged — or blatantly declined — for hail damage repairs and house insurance renewal.

One of the events organizers, Harlin Kaur, introduced the gathering by explaining her family’s experience. Earlier this month, when routinely contacting their insurance company to renew their home, they were denied coverage days before expiry.

Kaur’s insurance company said that because their home falls under the T3N and T3J postal code — which defines a majority of Calgary’s northeast — that the number of hail claims in the area warrants enough cause to revoke coverage.

“If I don’t have house insurance, I can’t renew my mortgage,” she said.  

“If I can’t renew my mortgage, we basically end up homeless.”

Kaur shopped around several insurance companies, one of which quoted her an annual sum of $21,000. Eventually, she signed with a different company who quoted her just under $7,000 for the year.  

Regardless, she noticed a similarity between the responses she received from a number of companies. That because her home was impacted by the record-breaking August 2024 hailstorm, they would not provide coverage due to the natural disaster that had occured. Yet, neither the Government of Canada or Alberta have updated their databases to include last summers hailstorm as a natural disaster.

‘It’s unaffordable and unexplainable,’ residents say

Resident Julie Gjura said that she found the most affordable coverage through an insurance company based in Saskachewan. However, she said that the company won’t enact the policy until after her home’s previous hail damage is repaired.

Gjura said that she paid a contractor to do the repairs last fall, but that nobody has come to fix it. Even after reaching out repeatedly, she’s heard nothing but crickets.

In order to keep her current house insurance, she has to re-sign for another year, and the deadline is less than a month away — with no contractor even having touched the home yet. 

“It’s horrible,” said another resident, Mustafa Khan. 

“With the insurance company, the construction company — they’re all taking advantage of the crisis.”

Khan was one of the many whose roof and siding was impacted by the 2020 storm. Around the time that he paid to fix the exterior of his home, his insurance was ready for renewel. 

Like others, his company denied coverage.

Up until last summer, the 2020 hailstorm held the record for being the most damaging. In an effort to alleviate the financial burden off of affected residents, the city passed the Resilient Roofing Rebate Program which offered a $3,000 deduction for those replacing their injured rooves with Class 4 shingles.

According to the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, this style of shingle is manufactured under the UL 2218 standard and is built to survive the impact of hail just slightly smaller than a baseball. 

However, in order to be eligible for the rebate, house insurance was required. 

After paying upwards of $5,000 for the repair, Khan no longer qualified for the rebate because he did not have house insurance. To this day, he and his family have been unable to find affordable coverage. 

Khan said that he’s lived in the northeast for 20 years, but due to the risks of going uninsured and the financial burden that comes with being insured, that he and his family are considering relocating elsewhere. 

“We want to sell our house, move out of this area, maybe to the southern side,” he said. 

“Because this is not worth living through.”

What are elected officials doing to help?

Two-years-ago, the city ended the rebate program. In December 2024, Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal responded to the August storm by submitting a Notice of Motion asking the administration to review the previous programs outcome and recommend how to go about reinstating a similar initiative. 

Coun. Dhaliwal expects the administration to respond sometime this summer. He said that he hopes to hear from them before the next big storm happens, but that no matter their perspective, he stressed the need to evaluate why houses in the area are increasingly vulnerable. 

“We need to look at the building code changes,” he said. 

“Because we can’t suffer this every year…we need to make a structural, fundamental change, which I think lies in the material.”

But with Alberta’s building codes for 2025 having already been finalized, it’s unlikely that any changes can be made until 2030. 

Nonetheless, Dhaliwal said that he plans on meeting with Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD Calgary) sometime before June to discuss.