June Through September Is When Your Roof Faces Its Biggest Test
If you’ve lived in Calgary for any length of time, you’ve got a hail story. Maybe your car got hammered in a parking lot. Maybe you watched golf-ball-sized ice shred the garden in under five minutes. Maybe you were one of the thousands of homeowners standing in line to file insurance claims after the big ones in 2020 or 2024. Whatever your specific experience, you know hail here is not a small deal.
The season runs roughly from June through September, with the worst storms typically building in late June and July. You can’t stop ice from falling out of the sky. But you can take meaningful steps before, during, and after hail season that reduce the damage to your roof and make the recovery process faster and less painful if a storm does hit your neighbourhood.
Get Your Roof Inspected Before the Storms Start
The single most impactful thing you can do is go into hail season with a roof that’s already in good condition. That means getting a professional inspection done in May — before the season starts — and fixing any problems the inspector finds. Worn shingles. Cracked flashing. Compromised sealant around vents. Anything that’s already weakened is going to suffer disproportionately more damage when hail hits.
Think of it like this: a healthy shingle might survive a hit from a marble-sized hailstone and stay intact. A shingle that was already cracked, dried out from UV exposure, or missing half its granules? That same hailstone punches right through it. The condition your roof is in when the storm arrives determines how much damage you’re dealing with afterward.
Impact-Resistant Shingles Are Worth Every Penny in This City
If you’re replacing your roof anyway, or building a new home, Class 4 impact-resistant shingles should be at the top of your list. These products are tested under the UL 2218 standard — essentially, a two-inch steel ball gets dropped onto the shingle from 20 feet and the product either passes or fails. Products that pass are rated Class 4, and they genuinely hold up to hail that would crack a standard shingle.
Every major manufacturer makes Class 4 options. CertainTeed, GAF, Malarkey, IKO — they all have product lines in various styles and colours. The price premium over standard shingles runs about 10 to 20 percent. In a city where hail claims are a near-certainty over the life of a roof, that premium pays for itself through fewer repair bills, fewer insurance claims, and — here’s the part people don’t always know about — insurance premium discounts.
A lot of Alberta insurers offer discounts of 10 to 30 percent on the roof portion of your policy when you have a verified Class 4 installation. Over 20 or 25 years, those savings can offset the entire cost difference between standard and impact-resistant products.
Clean Your Gutters Before June
This advice shows up in every roofing article for a reason: it’s important and people keep ignoring it. A hailstorm dumps an enormous volume of water in a very short time. If your gutters are clogged with leaves, granules, and winter debris, that water can’t drain. It overflows at the eaves, works its way under shingles, and causes damage on top of whatever the hail itself did.
Clean them out thoroughly in late May. If debris is a recurring problem — especially if you’ve got mature trees near the house — gutter guards are worth the investment. They won’t catch everything, but they’ll prevent the worst clogs and keep water moving during heavy rain events.
Trim Your Trees (Hail Turns Branches Into Projectiles)
Hailstorms are typically accompanied by strong winds, and wind plus hail is a terrible combination for overhanging tree branches. The hail weakens branches by stripping leaves and cracking wood. The wind finishes the job. A limb that was healthy last week ends up on your roof surface — or through your roof surface — during the storm.
Keep trees trimmed back at least six to eight feet from the roof line. This is easy to forget because trees grow gradually. The branch that was a comfortable distance two summers ago might be resting on your eaves now. Walk the perimeter of your house in May and look up. If anything is within reach of the roof, cut it back.
Know Your Insurance Policy Before You Need to Use It
Reading your insurance policy is nobody’s idea of a fun Saturday afternoon, but doing it before hail season can save you from expensive surprises afterward. There are three things you need to know cold before any storm hits.
First, your deductible. Specifically, check whether your policy uses a flat-dollar deductible or a percentage-based hail deductible. Some Alberta insurers have switched to percentage deductibles for hail, which means your out-of-pocket cost is a percentage of your home’s insured value rather than a fixed amount. On a $600,000 home with a 5 percent hail deductible, you’re looking at $30,000 before insurance pays a cent. That’s a massively different number than the $1,000 flat deductible you might have been expecting.
Second, coverage type. Do you have replacement cost coverage (insurer pays to replace the damaged roof with equivalent new materials) or actual cash value coverage (insurer pays the depreciated value of the existing roof)? On a 15-year-old roof, actual cash value coverage might pay out a fraction of what replacement actually costs.
Third, check for hail-specific exclusions or sub-limits. Some policies cap hail damage payouts or exclude cosmetic hail damage (dents that don’t affect function). Know this before the storm, not after.
Build a Pre-Storm Documentation Kit
Keep a folder — physical, digital, or both — with your insurance policy number, your broker’s phone number, your roofing contractor’s contact information, and a recent set of photos showing your roof’s condition. Those “before” photos are incredibly valuable if you need to file a claim. They establish the pre-storm baseline and make it much harder for an adjuster to attribute hail damage to pre-existing wear.
Take these photos in good light on a clear day. Get shots from multiple angles — all four sides of the house, close-ups of the shingles on each slope, and any flashing or vent areas. Date them. Store them somewhere accessible. If you never need them, great. If you do, they could save you thousands.
After the Storm — What to Do and What Not to Do
Once the hail passes, stay off the roof. Wet, debris-covered shingles are slippery and dangerous. Hail-damaged shingles can crack under foot. Do a ground-level visual check with binoculars if you have them. Look for visible dents, missing shingles, broken pieces, and debris. Take photos of everything you can see from the ground.
Then call a professional roofer for an inspection. A qualified roofer can get up there safely, identify all the damage — including the stuff that’s invisible from street level — and put together a written report with photos that you can submit with your insurance claim. Don’t try to DIY the assessment. Hail damage is often subtle (small cracks, granule displacement, soft spots) and easy to miss without experience.
File Your Claim Quickly
Insurance policies typically have time limits for reporting storm damage. Waiting weeks or months makes it harder to tie the damage specifically to the hail event, and gives the insurer room to argue the damage was pre-existing. Get the inspection done within a few days of the storm. Your contractor’s report, paired with your pre-storm photos, creates a documentation package that’s very hard for an adjuster to dispute.
Watch Out for Storm Chasers at Your Door
Within 48 hours of any major hailstorm in Calgary, contractors from across Western Canada show up in affected neighbourhoods, knocking on doors. Some are legitimate businesses. Many are not. They’ll offer free inspections, promise to handle your insurance claim from start to finish, and pressure you to sign a contract on your doorstep.
Never sign anything on the spot. Take their card, verify their business licence, check their WCB (Workers’ Compensation Board) coverage, read their Google reviews, and compare their quote to at least two established local companies. A contractor who pressures you into a same-day commitment is probably counting on your sense of urgency to prevent you from doing your homework.
Preparation Beats Reaction Every Time
The homeowners who come through hail season with the least damage, the least stress, and the lowest bills are the ones who prepared before the first storm cell built on the horizon. They got their roofs inspected in May. They trimmed their trees. They read their insurance policy. They have a documentation kit ready to go.
You can’t control the weather. But you can control how ready you are when it turns ugly. If you want to ensure your home is fully protected, partnering with an experienced Calgary roofing company like Angels Roofing is the first step toward true peace of mind.