CALGARY – The powerful July 12 storm that dumped golf ball-size hail and heavy rain on parts of Calgary is officially the most expensive in Canadian history.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada puts the dollar value of insurance claims at about $400 million, making the brief but intense weather event the worst ever recorded in terms of paid claims.
The industry has logged about 55,000 claims so far, mostly for hail damage to vehicles but also ruined siding, broken windows, leaky roofs and flooding.
Last month’s sudden downpour caused significant damage to homes and automobiles mostly in the city’s northwest and smashed dozens of panes on a University of Calgary greenhouse.
The volume of claims has also created a backlog at autobody shops. In some cases, hail specialists have been flown in from other provinces and the U.S. to help repair thousands of pockmarked cars.
Previously, the greatest single storm loss in Canadian history was a Sept. 7 1991 hailstorm – also in Calgary – that surpassed even the Edmonton tornado of 1987 in terms of damage. In that case, the insurance industry paid out about $342 million.
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