Province to provide relief funds for Calgary hailstorm

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — After a massive hailstorm hit the city on June 13, causing upwards of a billion dollars in damage, the province will be providing some financial relief.

Premier Jason Kenney said a study had been done to determine the eligibility for relief.

“Following a detailed hydrological analysis, the Alberta Emergency Management Agency has classified this as an extraordinary event, meaning that is has met the one-in-25-year threshold.”

Moving ahead, the City of Calgary can now apply for the provincial Disaster Relief Program and Kenney added that the government will expedite a package to help cover uninsurable loss and damage — along with damages done to municipally owned properties.

It comes after calls from the Opposition NDP and residents affected by the storm for this relief to be provided, as there are also concerns that insurance companies will not be able to cover all of the costs.

Kenney does not believe that will be the case, as this relief will only cover a small amount of damage to uninsurable private property.

“I understand that through the (Insurance Bureau of Canada), that insurance companies have received more 35,000 claims for damage and 99 per cent of those that have been submitted have been assessed to have coverage. Fewer than one per cent have been assessed as to not have coverage,” he said.

Kenney said this is not a situation where the province needs to provide a large amount of funding and worried that it could set a negative precedent in the event of more storms like this in the future.

“I don’t believe that it would be responsible for us to have taxpayers bail out the big insurance companies,” he said.

“That would create a very serious moral hazard where, in the future, people would say they have no need to insure their property and it would effectively bail out the insurance companies. Why would they make good on their policy obligations if the government is stepping in to do so instead?”

Tens of thousands of homes were damaged in the storm, along with thousands more vehicles. Before this announcement was made, earlier in the week residents in northeast Calgary sent a letter to Kenney and the government calling for relief as some people have heard they will only get a fraction of the damage costs covered by insurance.

Other residents add that previous storms have caused deductibles to rise sharply and some have foregone complete insurance coverage for their vehicles due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving them without enough money and less of a need to drive.