Adjusters scramble to keep up with thousands of incoming hail-damaged vehicles

The hailstorm that rocked north Calgary last week has left insurance adjusters scrambling to review thousands of vehicles damaged in the storm.

One company, DCC Hail, is using a hail scanner, which operations director Devon Fenton says reduces the sometimes hours-long ordeal of counting and marking every dent to a matter of minutes.

"The scanner has five cameras. Each shoot at 50 frames per second. The time to drive through the scanner is between five and six seconds. So each one of those cameras is capturing 250 to 300 images," Fenton said.

"Then, the algorithm – the AI part of it – reviews the photos and detects the dents and sizes the dents and then gives us an account of how many dents and the size of them per panel."

What it's telling the operators this past week is that the storm that hit Calgary caused massive damage.

Many cars and trucks are arriving with thousands of dents all over.

"What we're hearing from our insurance partners and other insurance companies is that everybody has surpassed their claim volume from 2020," Fenton said.

"At the time leading up to this storm, that was the largest hail storm in Canadian history. So I think we're setting some new records with this one."

Many vehicles might never be restored to pre-storm condition.

The parking lot behind DCC Hail is jammed with close to 200 cars, trucks and SUVs deemed "total losses" by insurers.

The term refers to what's commonly called "a write-off."

"Most of these are tow-ins because they have smashed glass of some kind," Fenton said.

"When hail smashes glass, whether it's a windshield, sunroof, side glass, it's very severe hail damage."

The storm has sparked a boom in the auto-body repair business, with shops swamped with work and many looking for staff.

DCC Hail has brought in staff from across Canada to handle the crush of hail-damaged vehicles.

It expects work scanning vehicles to continue through September, and repairs to still be happening up into next year.

DCC Hail has eight of the proprietary Hail Damage Scanners, seven of which can be packed up and shipped to wherever hailstorms hit.

Five of the units are presently in Calgary.

One remains here permanently, as southern Alberta is home to the greatest number of damaging hailstorms in Canada, and is considered in the hail industry as one of the top three markets for hail damage repairs in the world, along with north-central Texas and parts of southern China.