It's been a busy few weeks for hail adjusters with some major storms moving through the Prairies leaving a trail of crop and property damage. 

Scott McQueen, President of the Canadian Crop Hail Association says we may have had a slow start but in the last few weeks we've seen an increase in storm activity.

While McQueen didn't have total claim numbers available at the time of the interview, he notes in one week (July 25 - 31) they've had more than 1200 claims of crop damage reported between Alberta and Saskatchewan.

"In Saskatchewan, ranging from the Swift Current area, up into Rosetown, and then down the highway past Saskatoon, and into the Yorktown area, Kamsack and Canora. We've seen some pea to baseball sized hail in that Elrose, Beechy area."

Reports say a storm over the weekend (August 13) in the Kelvington area caused significant damage.

Damage in that storm resulted in significant crop damage, as well as damage to trees, vehicles, sheds, barns and grain bins.

McQueen says he's heard about the storm but those claim numbers will be reflected in the next report. 

Significant damage has also been reported by CCHA member agencies in Alberta with damage being reported in a variety of crops and over a wide swath of the province.

He adds Alberta has had three or four storms over the last month that have produced severe damage to crops. 

"That Innisfail/Penhold storm was kind of splattered all over the news. Larger than baseball sized hail damaging cars, machinery and buildings, which in turn also causes severe damage to crops. So that storm played some significant damage for us. We also had a storm August 1st that sort of rolled through Medicine Hat, down the highway to Seven Persons, Bow Island and continued into Saskatchewan. So that one also producing abnormally large sized hail, some baseball and bigger, obviously causing severe damage to both to farmers crops, buildings and machinery."

He says as the year goes on it doesn't take much of a hail storm to damage crops. 

"We have seen some complete crop devastation throughout July and early August."

CCHA companies are reporting they are still on time when it comes to assessing the damage. 

McQueen notes if you are harvesting your crops, please leave adequate test strips for your adjuster. If you are not sure what to leave, give your insurance provider a call and they will help you out.

Source - https://www.discovermoosejaw.com