Within days of a major Calgary hailstorm, crews arrive from out of province. Many of them are legitimate. The August 5, 2024 storm alone produced more than 130,000 insurance claims, which is more work than any local industry can absorb, and travelling crews help get those roofs done.
The trouble is that the same conditions also attract operators whose business model depends on being gone before the warranty matters. Insurers and the Competition Bureau describe the same tactics again and again, which makes them recognisable.
The four things you'll hear
Any one of these should stop the conversation.
- "Your claim is already approved." It cannot be. Only your insurer approves a claim and not before anyone has assessed your roof. This is said to create urgency and to make signing feel procedural.
- "We'll cover your deductible" or "you'll pay nothing out of pocket". Insurers warn that contractors who promise this then bulk up the scope billed to the insurer to recover it. That's fraud, and the claim is in your name, not the name of the crew that left in October.
- "Sign here so we can inspect it." An inspection needs no signature. What's being signed can be a contingency agreement or an assignment of benefits, which can commit your claim proceeds to that contractor regardless of what happens next.
- "This price is only good today." Roofing materials are not a flash sale. The Competition Bureau lists limited-time pressure as a classic door-to-door tactic, and on a five-figure change to your house it's a reason to slow down.
How to tell a travelling crew from a problem
What matters is whether they'll be reachable when something goes wrong in year three, wherever they're from.
- Do they hold an Alberta prepaid contracting licence? Required when the job is sold in person away from their office and any money is paid before the work is done, and verifiable on the provincial register in a couple of minutes.
- Can they produce WCB Alberta clearance and a liability certificate now, not later?
- Is there an Alberta address and an Alberta phone number on the contract, rather than a call centre?
- Who honours the workmanship warranty, and are they an Alberta legal entity? "The manufacturer covers it" is not an answer: IKO's limited warranty, for example, excludes damage from improper application, so the installation is the contractor's to stand behind.
- Will they wait for your adjuster? A contractor who needs you signed before the insurer looks is managing a risk that isn't yours.
The deductible thing, specifically
It deserves its own section because it's a common offer and an often misunderstood one. Your deductible is the part of the loss you agreed to pay, and you're responsible for it on any claim. A contractor absorbing it has to recover it somewhere, and insurers report that it usually means the invoice to your insurer overstates the work. A false statement to an insurer can put the claim and the policy at risk, and those consequences land on the policyholder, sometimes long after the contractor has become untraceable. Anyone offering it is asking you to carry that risk so they can win the job.
What good practice looks like after a storm
For contrast, because most of this industry is fine. A legitimate contractor will document the damage without asking you to sign anything, give you the report whether or not you hire them, wait for your adjuster rather than working around them, put the scope in writing with itemised lines, and tell you honestly if your roof doesn't have a claimable loss. That last one is the real test. A contractor who has never once told a homeowner "there's nothing here" is selling roofs, not inspecting them.
Someone knocked and I let them on the roof. Did I do something wrong?
No. Letting someone look at your roof commits you to nothing as long as you signed nothing. If you did sign something, read it now (particularly for an assignment of benefits or a cancellation fee), and know that Alberta's Consumer Protection Act lets you cancel a direct sales contract for any reason within 10 days of receiving your copy of the written contract.
My neighbour used a storm crew and it went fine.
Often it does. A common failure is a roof with a problem in year three and nobody to call, rather than a bad roof on day one. The risk is asymmetric and it shows up late.
Who do I report a contractor to in Alberta?
Service Alberta's Consumer Investigations Unit handles complaints about contractor conduct, door-to-door sales and prepaid contracting. If the issue is how your claim was handled, start with your insurer's complaint process, then the General Insurance OmbudService, which is free. The Alberta Insurance Council handles the conduct of agents, brokers and independent adjusters.
Where the facts on this page come from. If a source has changed since we last checked, tell us and we'll fix the page.
- Alberta hail storm: tips to avoid contractor scams · Aviva Canada
- Door-to-door scams · Competition Bureau Canada
- Prepaid contracting business licence · Government of Alberta
- Consumer Protection Act, RSA 2000, c C-26.3 (s. 27, direct sales cancellation) · Alberta King's Printer
- Clearance letters · WCB Alberta
- Home insurance · Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
- Limited warranty, asphalt shingles (Canada) · IKO
- CAD 3.29B: CatIQ discloses updated industry loss for the Calgary hailstorm of August 5, 2024 · CatIQ
- Cost of historic Calgary hailstorm continues to rise · Insurance Bureau of Canada
- File a consumer complaint · Government of Alberta