Canada / British Columbia
One Province. Two Codes.
We Check Which One Applies.
We are a United States estimating desk writing Xactimate supplements for British Columbia roofing contractors. The Province's own code page states that BC Codes do not apply in the City of Vancouver, which runs its own building by-law. Outside Vancouver, the losses driving claims here are water and wind, not hail. Both facts change how a file should be written. Pricing is in United States dollars, stated plainly.
All pricing in USD.
The code question British Columbia makes harder than it needs to be
For most of British Columbia, the governing instrument is the BC Building Code 2024, in effect since March 8, 2024, applying to projects with permits applied for after that date. The previous edition's earthquake design and adaptable dwelling unit requirements stayed in force for permits applied for until March 9, 2025, so a building permitted in that window can answer to a mixed set of provisions depending on what part of the Code is in question.
That alone would be enough to require checking the edition before writing a citation, the same discipline this desk applies in Alberta and Ontario. But British Columbia has a second layer that neither of those provinces does. The Province's own construction standards page says it directly, in its own words: BC Codes don't apply in the City of Vancouver, which has its own building bylaw. That is the Province of British Columbia telling contractors plainly that its own code does not govern the largest city inside it.
We are not going to hand you a Vancouver by-law number or a specific effective date on this page. Every attempt to read the City's own by-law materials directly returned a security block rather than the text itself, and the only places we could find those specifics were secondhand summaries, not the by-law. What we can tell you, because the Province says it plainly, is that the split is real, it comes from a government source, and a code citation written against the wrong instrument on a Vancouver file fails for a different reason than a citation written against the wrong edition anywhere else in the province.
Water and wind, not hail, and the November 2021 floods show why
Ask a British Columbia roofer what breaks a roof and the answer is rarely hail. The Insurance Bureau of Canada's own description of the November 2021 flooding calls it the most costly severe weather event in the province's history, driven by a series of atmospheric rivers that, in IBC's own words, brought unprecedented rain to the province's southwest over a two-week period, with mudslides, flooded homes, farms and businesses, and destroyed public infrastructure.
IBC reported the insured damage from that event revised upward to $675 million, from an earlier estimate of $515 million, citing updated figures from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. The release quotes IBC's own Vice-President for Pacific and Western operations observing that the overwhelming majority of the disaster's total cost would land on government rather than on insurance, because many of the hardest-hit residential areas sit in high-risk flood zones where residential flood coverage has not historically been widely available.
None of that is a hail story. It is a water and infrastructure story, and it sets the tone for how claims get built across the province: the argument on a BC roof is usually about what got wet, how far the water travelled through the assembly, and what has to come out before anything goes back in, not about impact marks on a shingle.
Why a coastal assembly scopes differently
A hail roof is fundamentally a covering argument: what the impact did to the surface and what the manufacturer or the code requires once that surface is compromised. A wind-driven rain and moisture event is a different kind of argument entirely. It is about sequence and assembly: what got wet, in what order, how far it travelled under flashing and through underlayment, and what has to be replaced rather than dried out.
Reusing hail-market habits on a coastal BC file is how line items disappear. Ice and water membrane extent, flashing details at valleys and penetrations, ventilation, and the underlayment actually required for a wet climate are the parts of a scope most likely to be underwritten thin when the person writing it is working from a template built for a different kind of weather. That is the gap this desk exists to close, and it is the same documentation discipline whether the loss is wind, rain, or both together.
What we do not claim
- We are not licensed in British Columbia. Adjusting is provincially regulated here and our credential is a United States one. We do estimating and supplement documentation, working behind you.
- We do not claim to have British Columbia insurers mapped. They are different companies from the American ones, and inferring their behaviour from a US insurer would be making something up.
- We make no permit claim on this page. Every source we found on BC re-roofing permits was a contractor blog and they contradicted each other. If permits matter on your file, the municipality is the answer, not us.
- We do not cite the Vancouver by-law's number, date, or clauses. We can source that a separate Vancouver instrument exists, because the Province says so directly. We could not read the City's own by-law text, so we do not describe it further than that.
- We are a US company working remotely. Nothing about the service depends on being in the same country as the roof, and we would rather you know that before you send a file than after.
The TEC Guarantee
Send us an average of 2 claims per week for 12 months and we guarantee you will add a minimum of six figures in additional margin to your business. If you do not, we write you a $5,000 check at the end of the 12 months.
All pricing in USD, and the guarantee is paid in USD. This is a commitment we are making to you, not a projection of what your claims will return.
Questions
Which building code applies to a British Columbia roof?
For most of the province, it is the BC Building Code 2024, which came into effect March 8, 2024 and applies to projects with permits applied for after that date. The previous edition's earthquake design and adaptable dwelling unit requirements stayed in force for permits applied for until March 9, 2025. But the BC Building Code does not govern everywhere in the province. The Province states plainly on its own code page that BC Codes do not apply in the City of Vancouver, which runs its own building by-law. Which instrument governs a given roof depends on the municipality first and the edition second.
Wait, Vancouver has its own code entirely?
Its own by-law, yes. The Province of British Columbia's construction standards page says it directly: BC Codes don't apply in the City of Vancouver, which has its own building bylaw. That is not a rumor or a contractor's workaround, it is the provincial code authority describing a real jurisdictional split. We can tell you that the split exists and that it comes from the Province itself. We are not going to hand you a specific Vancouver by-law number or an effective date on this page, because the City's own by-law materials returned a security block to every direct fetch we attempted, and we will not repeat a date we only saw secondhand.
Does that mean you cannot write a code argument on a Vancouver file?
It means we establish which instrument governs before we write one. A code citation aimed at the BC Building Code on a building that actually answers to the Vancouver by-law does not survive a reviewer's second look, and a guess dressed up as a citation is worse than leaving the argument out. Where we can source the applicable provision cleanly, we cite it. Where we cannot, we say so and build the rest of the file on what we can support.
Is British Columbia a hail market like Alberta?
No, and we are not going to pretend it is. Every source we reviewed describes BC's severe weather losses as water and wind driven rather than hail driven, coastal storms and atmospheric rivers rather than hailstorms. The Insurance Bureau of Canada, in the release covering the November 2021 flooding, called it the most costly severe weather event in the province's history, driven by a series of atmospheric rivers that brought what the release called unprecedented rain to the province's southwest over a two-week period.
How big was that 2021 event?
IBC reported the insured damage from the November 2021 BC floods revised upward to $675 million, from an earlier estimate of $515 million, based on updated figures from Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. IBC's own release states the November floods were the most costly severe weather event in the province's history, and quotes its Vice-President for Pacific and Western operations saying plainly that the overwhelming majority of the disaster's total costs would be borne by government rather than by insurance, since many of the hardest-hit residential areas sit in high-risk flood zones where residential flood coverage is not always available.
What does a water and wind loss profile mean for how a roof gets scoped?
It means the argument is about the assembly and the water path, not just the surface. A hail roof is a covering argument: what the impact did to the shingle or membrane. A wind-driven rain and moisture event is a sequence and assembly argument: what got wet, how far water travelled under flashing and through underlayment, what the assembly requires to dry out or be replaced rather than patched. Those are different scopes with different line items, and treating a coastal BC roof like a landlocked hail roof is how documentation goes missing.
Do you know how British Columbia insurers handle supplements?
The insurers operating here are different companies from the American ones, and we are not going to claim to have their settled behaviour mapped. What transfers across the border is the mechanics of the scope. A measurement report is either matched by the line items on the estimate or it is not, regardless of which country wrote either document. What we learn about a specific insurer, we learn on your file and tell you honestly.
Are you licensed in British Columbia?
No. We are not licensed in British Columbia, and we do not present ourselves as being. We are a United States company and our credential is a United States one. Adjusting is provincially regulated in Canada. What we do for you is estimating and supplement documentation, delivered remotely, working behind you while you keep the relationship with your insurer and your customer.
What currency are your fees in?
All pricing is in United States dollars. We do not quote in Canadian dollars and we do not publish a converted figure, because an exchange rate printed on a web page goes stale almost immediately. Your own bank or card issuer applies the conversion at the rate on the day you pay.
Send us one and see
Send the insurer estimate and your measurement report. We will read it and tell you what we see, including telling you if there is nothing worth chasing on it.
All pricing in USD.