Insurance Claims, Handled.

Alberta accounts for a wildly disproportionate share of Canada's insured hail losses, and Calgary sits at the centre of it. The June 2020 storm across the city's northeast remains the costliest hailstorm in Canadian history, and storms of consequence cross this region most summers — along the QEII corridor north through Airdrie, Crossfield, Olds and Innisfail, east through Chestermere, Langdon and Strathmore, south through Okotoks and High River, and up the west side through Springbank and Cochrane.

The thing that makes these claims different from most property claims is that the damage is invisible and delayed. A hailstone does not need to break a shingle to end its life — it only needs to fracture the fibreglass mat under the granules. That bruise sheds granules over the following seasons, the exposed asphalt oxidizes under high-altitude UV, and a roof that looked perfectly fine in July starts leaking in year three or four. By then, the claim window has often closed.

Which means the decisive action after a storm is not repair. It is inspection and documentation, promptly, with a defensible date attached — even if you decide to do nothing else.

Homeowners look for holes. Adjusters look for a pattern of impact consistent with a hail event of a given stone size on a given date, and the evidence they weigh is more specific than most people expect.

On the shingle surface: bruising — soft, slightly depressed spots, often shiny where granules were knocked loose, and soft to the touch like a bruise on fruit. Concentrated granule loss with dark asphalt showing through. Cracked or split shingles, which are more common on older or three-tab roofs.

On the soft metals: dents. Roof vents, flashing, eavestroughs, downspouts, garage doors, air conditioning fins, even a mailbox. These are frequently what settles a claim, because they establish that hail of a measurable size struck that specific address — evidence the shingle surface alone can leave ambiguous.

On the walls: cracked or punctured vinyl siding, usually low on the panel where it is least supported and concentrated on the elevation facing the storm. It only shows in raking light, which is why it is missed so often.

Random directionality matters too. Hail damage is scattered and comes from a consistent direction; damage in neat lines or confined to walkways is usually mechanical rather than weather. A good inspection distinguishes them, because filing on the wrong thing wastes a claim.

Inspect before you file. We will tell you honestly whether the damage is real and claim-worthy — insurers do not cover ordinary wear, and a claim on your history for a roof that simply aged out is a cost with no benefit. Sometimes the answer is that there is nothing here, and we say so.

If it is claim-worthy, the documentation comes next: systematic photographs against a scale reference, accurate measurements, and a written scope covering the whole envelope rather than just the roof. Then you contact your insurer and we supply the evidence package.

Timing matters more than people realize. Policies vary, and some insurers apply a limitation period measured from the date of the storm rather than the date you noticed the damage. Sitting on it through a winter is the single most common way a legitimate claim is lost.

Then the adjuster inspection, and this is the step where having your contractor on the roof alongside them changes outcomes. Two people looking at the same damage and agreeing on it in person prevents the majority of disputes. Where a scope comes back short — a common result when an adjuster inspects quickly, or from the ground — it can be supplemented with evidence rather than argued about.

Finally the rebuild, to the approved scope. On most approved claims, the homeowner pays only their deductible.

The most common and most expensive mistake in an Alberta hail claim is scoping only the roof.

The same storm that bruised your shingles very likely dented the eavestroughs and downspouts, cracked the vinyl siding on the storm-facing elevation, marked the soffit and fascia, and hit the detached garage — which takes identical hail and is the single most overlooked structure on a residential property. On an acreage, add the shop, the barn and every outbuilding, none of which anyone inspects.

Those components then age out with undocumented damage, and by the time the problem is obvious the link to the storm is no longer provable and the claim window has closed. The homeowner ends up with a restored roof over ten-year-old cracked siding and a garage on its last legs.

Because we roof, side, do eavestroughs and build garages in-house, we inspect and document the whole property as one loss and submit it as one scope. That is materially easier for an adjuster to work with than three trades filing separately, and it leaves you with a property where everything is on the same clock.

A storm restoration is the cheapest opportunity you will ever get to improve the building, because the mobilization, the labour and the disposal are already covered.

The upgrade that matters most here is Class 4 impact-rated shingles. Class 4 is the top rating in the UL 2218 test — a two-inch steel ball dropped twice on the same spot without the mat fracturing. In a corridor that sees damaging hail most summers, that is the difference between the next storm costing a deductible and costing nothing. Many Alberta insurers also discount premiums for impact-rated roofing, which is worth a call to your broker while the claim is open. The insurer funds a like-for-like restoration and you pay the difference to upgrade.

The second is ventilation. A restoration happens with the roof open, which is the only cheap moment to correct attic intake and exhaust, clear soffit vents buried under decades of insulation top-ups, and redirect bathroom fans that terminate into the attic. None of that is claim work and all of it costs a fraction now versus later.

The third is simply doing the whole envelope at once, so you are not returning to the same property for three separate jobs over five years.

Every significant hail event in Alberta is followed within days by out-of-province crews working door to door. Some are legitimate. The pattern of the ones that are not is consistent enough to name plainly.

The warning signs: pressure to sign on the spot, an offer to waive or absorb your deductible, a large deposit demanded up front, a promise to start before the adjuster has inspected, no local address, and a phone number nobody will answer next spring. Absorbing a deductible is not a discount — it is insurance fraud in Alberta, and it makes the homeowner a party to it.

The protections are simple. Ask for an Alberta business licence, a certificate of liability insurance and a current WCB clearance letter. Ask who provides the workmanship warranty and whether that entity will exist in five years. Verify a physical local address. Get everything in writing before anyone touches the roof.

We are based at 216 - 4850 Westwind Drive NE in Calgary, licensed, insured and WCB-covered, and the warranty on the work is ours. We will be here for the next storm.