The first cheque is not the settlement. A lot of people never find that out.
This is the most expensive thing homeowners misunderstand about roof claims, and it costs them thousands quietly.
**Actual cash value (ACV)** is replacement cost minus depreciation for the age and wear of what was damaged. **Replacement cost value (RCV)** is the full cost to replace it. Most Alberta policies with replacement-cost coverage pay the ACV first and hold back the difference — the *recoverable depreciation* — releasing it once the work is actually completed and invoiced.
If you take the first cheque and don’t do the work, you keep the ACV and forfeit the rest. Permanently.
The usual sequence on an Alberta hail claim:
Some policies — particularly on older roofs — provide actual cash value only, with no recoverable depreciation at all. On a twenty-year-old roof that can mean a settlement covering a small fraction of replacement. This is worth knowing *before* a storm, because it’s a decision you can still change. Read your policy for “actual cash value” or a roof-specific schedule; some insurers apply ACV-only terms to roofs past a certain age even where the rest of the dwelling is on replacement cost.
The depreciation is released against a completed, invoiced scope that matches what was approved. A contractor who works off a handshake, invoices a round number with no line items, or completes a different scope than the one approved creates exactly the friction that delays or reduces that release. Itemised documentation isn’t bureaucracy — it’s the mechanism by which you get the second cheque.
Read the dwelling coverage section, or ask your broker directly — it’s a fair question and takes them a minute. Ask specifically whether the roof is treated differently from the rest of the dwelling, because on older roofs it often is.
It varies by policy and it is a real deadline. Find the number in your wording, and diarise it the day you get the ACV cheque. Insurers are not obliged to remind you.
You can generally choose not to do the work — you just forfeit the depreciation. What you cannot do is claim the depreciation against work that wasn’t done or was invoiced at more than it cost. That’s a false statement to an insurer.
Normally the first, which is why the ACV cheque can look surprisingly small. It doesn’t mean your claim was underpaid — check whether depreciation was withheld before concluding anything.
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