Roof Hail Damage: What to Look For and How the Claim Works

Calgary sits in the part of Alberta that takes more hail than anywhere else in Canada. Most summers bring at least one storm worth walking outside for. The frustrating part is that the damage which costs you the most is the damage you cannot see from the ground.

A roof can look completely normal after a storm and still be compromised. Here is what actually happens to a roof in hail, how to check, and how an Alberta claim runs.

What hail does to asphalt shingles

An asphalt shingle is a mat coated in asphalt with a layer of granules on top. Those granules are not decoration. They are the shingle's sunscreen, protecting the asphalt underneath from ultraviolet light.

When a hailstone hits hard enough, it knocks granules loose and bruises the mat underneath. The bruise is a soft spot where the mat has fractured. It often does not open up straight away. What happens instead is that the exposed asphalt starts breaking down in the sun, the bruise becomes a crack over the following seasons, and eventually water gets through.

That delay is the whole problem. A roof that seems fine in July can start leaking two summers later, long after the claim window has closed.

What to look for, safely

Do not climb onto a roof to check for hail damage. A bruised roof is not a safe roof to walk, and most of what you need to see can be seen from the ground or from a ladder at the edge. If you are not confident on a ladder, skip it and have someone look.

Start in the gutters and at the bottom of the downspouts. A heavy scatter of granules that looks like coarse black sand means the roof lost its surface in the storm. Some granule loss is normal on an older roof. A fresh pile after a storm is not.

Then check the soft metal around the house, because metal keeps a record that shingles do not. Look at aluminum fascia, the eavestrough itself, downspouts, vent caps, the roof vents, flashing, and any metal chimney cap. Dents in any of those mean hail hit with enough force to matter. Look at the air conditioner fins, the garage door, the mailbox, and the deck rail as well. If those are dented, the roof took the same hits.

Look at the north and west faces of the siding. Hail usually comes in at an angle, so one or two elevations take the worst of it.

Inside, go up into the attic with a flashlight a few days after the storm and look at the underside of the sheathing for damp patches or daylight. That is a later-stage sign, but it is worth checking.

A bruise on a shingle looks like a dark round spot where the granules have gone, and it feels soft if you press it, a bit like a bruise on fruit. That is the thing an adjuster is looking for, and it is the thing that is hard to see from the ground.

How the claim works in Alberta

The sequence matters, and doing it in the wrong order costs people money.

First, get the roof assessed and photographed. You want to know whether there is real damage before you open a claim, because a claim with nothing behind it is still a claim on your record. We will come out, go over the roof, photograph what we find, and tell you honestly whether it is worth opening. Sometimes the answer is no.

Second, you open the claim with your insurer. You do this, not the contractor. Note the date of the storm if you know it, because insurers match claims to recorded weather events.

Third, the insurer sends an adjuster. This is the part where having your contractor there is worth a great deal. The adjuster is assessing the roof and writing a scope of what the insurer will pay for. If nobody is there representing the roof, the scope is whatever one person saw on one pass. We can meet the adjuster on site.

Fourth, the insurer approves a scope. Read it. This document decides what actually gets done. If it misses the vents, the flashing or the eavestrough that were clearly damaged, that is a conversation to have before the work starts, not after.

Fifth, the work gets built to the approved scope. With an approved claim, your cost is usually the deductible.

Do not wait

Insurers set time limits on hail claims. The exact limit depends on your policy, so check yours, but the pattern is the same everywhere: the further you get from the storm date, the harder it is to prove which storm caused the damage.

This is the single most common way Calgary homeowners lose money on hail. The roof does not leak, so nothing feels urgent, so nobody calls. Two years later the bruises have opened up, the roof genuinely needs replacing, and the claim window has closed. Now it is out of pocket.

If a storm was bad enough that you noticed it, get the roof looked at that season.

A word about the crews that show up afterwards

After a significant hailstorm, roofing crews arrive in Calgary from out of province. Some are fine. Some are not, and the pattern is recognisable: door knocking within days of the storm, pressure to sign immediately, an offer to cover your deductible, and a vehicle with no local address on it.

Two things worth knowing. A contract signed at your home can generally be cancelled within ten days of you receiving your signed copy, without giving a reason. And a contractor who takes money before the work is done, having signed you up at your kitchen table, is a prepaid contractor in Alberta and has to be licensed by Service Alberta and post a security. You can check that licence before you sign.

The deeper issue is the warranty. Workmanship coverage is only worth what the company behind it is worth. A crew that leaves the province in October is not going to come back in March.

What we do

We photograph the damage, tell you whether a claim is worth opening, and say so plainly when it is not. You open the claim. We can meet the adjuster on site, and we build to the approved scope. Our workmanship warranty is fifteen years, the same on hail work as on anything else we install.

If you want a sense of the scale of the job before you talk to an insurer, the instant estimate will give you a range from aerial imagery in about thirty seconds. There is a box to tick for insurance work, and if you tick it we bring the claim paperwork to the assessment.

Full details of how we handle storm damage are on the hail damage page.