Roof and Siding Insurance Claims

Disaster prone Alberta’s homeowners insurance is rising. In 2012 Alberta had 62% of Canada’s catastrophic insured losses at a cost of 2.4 billion over just 2 summers. Deductibles are rising exponentially. Here at Sunik we have seen deductibles as high as $2500.00 per incident accompanied with increased premiums up to 20%. With bad weather being inevitable higher premiums and deductibles can be expected to keep growing.

We in Southern Alberta are in what is known as the “hail belt”. The question is not if the hail will come, it’s a matter of when the hail will come. And it will come!

So, how can homeowners keep their insurance costs down? First of all be diligent in researching the policy you purchase. Our recommendation is to purchase insurance that has a replacement clause versus pro-rated (to divide, assess, or distribute proportionally). For example, the cost of replacement can be staggering if your policy is pro-rated and you have 30-year shingles, and that shingle is 15 years old at the time of the storm. You would only get half of the full value needed for replacement, less the deductible. In summary a $10,000 new roof, less half is $5,000 less the $2,000 deductible. You would only receive $3,000 to replace the same $10,000 roof.

However on a replacement policy it is exactly what it states, full replacement regardless of the age, less the deductible. So on the same $10,000 roof your insurance would cover $8,000 based on a $2,000 deductible.

Many insurance companies offer a premium deduction if you install High Impact Resistant materials (Class 4). Most shingle distributors offer Class 4 shingles and there is also High Impact Resistant siding available. This is the very best choice to help keep costs down…no damage equals no claim.

If you have been unfortunate to have had to replace several roofs due to hail damage it may be time to jump off the tread mill and choose to skip out on the next hail/wind storm by installing Class 4 High Impact shingles and siding.