Commercial Roof Insurance Claims Assistance
Most commercial roof claims that are denied are not denied because the damage is absent. They were denied because the evidence was thin. Hailstones of 25 mm leave impact marks that do not puncture, and that damage reads as ordinary wear unless someone records it properly within days of the storm. Markit Roofing provides the technical evidence a commercial roof insurance claim depends on, across Calgary and Edmonton.
Be clear about what this is. Alberta’s Insurance Act reserves claim adjusting for licensed adjusters, so we do not negotiate your settlement or act as your representative. We inspect, photograph, measure, and write the technical report your adjuster needs, then carry out the approved work.
What Insurers Actually Need to See on a Roof
An adjuster’s site visit is usually brief, and on a large flat roof that matters. They are covering a lot of ground, often during a busy post-storm period, and what they do not see does not enter the scope of your commercial roof insurance claim. The gap between what is on your roof and what ends up in the settlement is where most claims quietly lose value.
- Damage written off as wear
- No record of prior condition
- Scope misses hidden damage.
- Loss reported months later.
- Photos taken after repairs
Those failures are all documentation problems rather than damage problems. A commercial roof inspection carried out before the adjuster attends gives you a written technical record, dated photographs, and moisture readings, so the conversation starts from evidence rather than from opinion.
Our Claim Documentation Process
Immediate Damage Documentation
The first hours matter more than most owners expect. Photograph everything before anything is touched, because once a temporary repair is made, the original damage is no longer visible and its extent becomes debatable. We document the roof in its failed state, with dates, locations, and scale references.
Making safe is not the same as repairing. Policies expect you to prevent further loss and to maintain evidence of the loss. We stabilize the roof during emergency repairs while leaving the damage recorded, so protecting your building never destroys the proof your claim depends on.
Independent Roof Assessment
Next, we properly survey the roof, which is a step an adjuster rarely has time for. Our HAAG-certified inspectors separate storm damage from age, which matters because the most common insurer pushback on a commercial roof is that the membrane was already at the end of its life and the storm finished it off.
Infrared scanning under ASTM C1153 shows where water actually entered the assembly and how far it spread beneath the surface. That distinction between wet insulation and a stained ceiling tile often determines whether a patch is approved or a full section is approved.
Meeting Your Adjuster On Site
We then walk the roof with your adjuster rather than leaving them to it. Showing a bruise on a membrane is far more useful than describing it in a report, and questions get answered on the spot instead of turning into a week of correspondence.
Our role here is technical, not adversarial. We explain what we found, how we found it, and what the assembly needs. Your adjuster and your policy wording determine the coverage decision; the evidence they weigh is what we are responsible for accurately presenting to them.
Scope, Repair, and Final Paperwork
Finally, we write the scope: materials, areas, quantities, and the code requirements the repair must satisfy. A vague scope invites a low settlement, so ours is specific enough to work through line by line.
Understand how a commercial roof insurance claim pays out. Most policies release actual cash value first, holding depreciation back until work is finished. Wind and hail deductibles are often percentage-based, commonly 2 to 5 percent, rather than flat. Yours remains yours to pay: we never absorb or rebate a deductible, because doing so is fraud and would put the claim at risk.
