Canada / Ontario
Ontario Has Its Own Code
And It Just Changed.
We are a United States estimating desk writing Xactimate supplements for Ontario roofing contractors. Ontario is the largest market in the country, it writes its own building code rather than adopting the national one unchanged, and that code turned over on January 1, 2025. Both of those facts land on your files. Pricing is in United States dollars, stated plainly.
All pricing in USD.
The code question, answered properly
Ontario is not a province that adopts the national model code and leaves it there. It publishes its own Building Code, and the current one is a recent arrival: the 2024 Building Code, Ontario Regulation 163/24, came into force on January 1, 2025, replacing the 2012 Building Code, Ontario Regulation 332/12. The compendium has been revised since it landed, with the most recent version dated January 16, 2025.
That changeover is more recent than Alberta's and it lands in the same awkward place. The roofs being claimed across Ontario right now were overwhelmingly built or last re-roofed under the previous code. Writing a code argument without first establishing which edition governs the building is guessing, and a guess in a citation is worse than no citation, because it hands the reviewer a clean reason to set the whole submission aside.
So we establish it first, then cite what actually applies. Where we cannot source something cleanly, we say so and build the file on the parts we can support. On a document somebody is looking for a reason to reject, thinner and correct beats thorough and wrong every time.
2024 is why your files are moving slowly
The Insurance Bureau of Canada reported that the flash flooding across Toronto and other parts of southern Ontario on July 15 and 16, 2024 produced initial insured loss estimates of over $940 million. That was one of four catastrophic events across July and August that IBC put at over $7 billion combined, producing approximately 228,000 insurance claims, which IBC described as a 406 percent increase over the twenty-year average.
Across the whole of 2024, IBC reported insured damage in Canada passing $8 billion for the first time, against a previous record of $6 billion set in 2016 and an annual average of $701 million through the 2001 to 2010 decade.
IBC named the consequence itself, and it is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing: those simultaneous events placed immense pressure on adjuster resources. That is the whole reason this page exists. When claim volume moves like that, every scope written afterward is produced by someone carrying a caseload they did not plan for. Those scopes are not written badly on purpose. They are written fast, and fast is where starter strip, drip edge, flashing, ventilation, and steep charges go missing. That is a documentation problem, and documentation problems are fixable after the fact.
Ontario is a water province, and water scopes differently
Alberta is hail. Ontario, on the 2024 evidence, is water. That is not a cosmetic difference in how a file gets written.
A wind or hail roof is fundamentally a covering argument: what the impact did to the surface, what the manufacturer requires, what the code requires when the surface comes off. A water loss is a sequence argument: what got wet, in what order, how far it travelled through the assembly, and what has to come out before anything goes back in. The line items are different, the documentation is different, and the part carriers most often underscope is the part that becomes invisible once the work is finished.
We write both phases on a water file, the mitigation and the rebuild, as the separate pieces of work they actually are rather than one blended number. If your Ontario claims are running heavier on water than on wind, that is normal for the market and it is the work we do.
What we do not claim
- We are not licensed in Ontario. 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 Ontario 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. Permits are municipal and Ontario has a great many municipalities. If permits matter on your file, your building department is the answer, not us.
- We do not give coverage opinions. Whether a particular water loss is covered is a policy question between you, your customer, and the insurer. We scope the work, we do not adjudicate the policy.
- We describe the code by its in-force date, not its clauses. We can source when the 2024 Code took effect and what it replaced. We do not quote provisions we have not opened.
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 an Ontario roof?
Ontario writes its own. There is no IRC here, and Ontario does not simply adopt the national model code unchanged. The 2024 Building Code, Ontario Regulation 163/24, came into force on January 1, 2025 and replaced the 2012 Building Code, Ontario Regulation 332/12. The compendium has been updated since, with the most recent version dated January 16, 2025. Which edition governs a given building depends on that building and that work, so it is a question to answer per file rather than assume.
Why does the January 2025 changeover matter on a claim?
Because most roofs being claimed right now were built or last re-roofed under the previous code, and a scope argument written against the wrong edition is easy for a reviewer to set aside. We establish which edition governs before we write a code line, and if we cannot establish it cleanly we leave the argument out and say so rather than guess at it.
How bad was 2024 for Ontario claims?
The Insurance Bureau of Canada reported that the flash flooding across Toronto and other parts of southern Ontario on July 15 and 16, 2024 produced initial insured loss estimates of over $940 million. That was one of four catastrophic events in July and August that IBC put at over $7 billion combined, generating approximately 228,000 insurance claims, which IBC described as a 406 percent increase over the 20-year average. Across the full year, IBC reported insured damage in Canada surpassing $8 billion for the first time, against a previous record of $6 billion in 2016.
What does that volume actually do to a scope?
IBC said it plainly in its own release: those simultaneous events placed immense pressure on adjuster resources. When claim volume spikes that hard, every scope written afterward is written by someone carrying a caseload they did not plan for. Scopes written under that pressure are not written badly on purpose, they are written fast, and fast is where line items go missing. That is a documentation problem, and documentation problems can be fixed after the fact.
Ontario is water, not hail. Do you handle that?
Yes, and the distinction matters. A wind or hail roof is a covering argument. A water loss is a sequence argument: what got wet, in what order, how far it travelled, and what has to come out before anything goes back. We write both, and on a water file we scope the mitigation phase and the rebuild phase as the separate pieces of work they actually are.
Do you know how Ontario insurers handle supplements?
The insurers here are different companies from the American ones and we will not claim to have their settled behaviour mapped. What transfers is the mechanics. A scope missing starter, drip edge, flashing, or steep charges is missing them in any market, and quantities taken off a measurement report are right or wrong regardless of the country. What we learn about a specific insurer, we learn on your file and tell you honestly.
Are you licensed in Ontario?
No, 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.
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 is out of date 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.