The storm finds the cars that were out that day
Most Liberty Village cars are hail-proof six days a week — concrete above P1 is better protection than any car cover ever made. So when a summer cell drops hail on the west end, the damage lands on the exceptions: cars sitting in the open lots around Exhibition Place during a match or the CNE, cars street-parked on Liberty or Fraser because visitor parking was full, and cars that were simply moving when the sky opened — on the Gardiner, on Lake Shore, or queued at Strachan with nowhere to go. Five minutes of weather can put strikes on every horizontal panel.
Hail damage is also a slow reveal. Under the flat light of a parking level, a peppered hood can pass for clean; the first low evening sun across the metal tells the truth. The economics work the same way — any single dent is trivial, but forty shallow strikes across hood, roof, and trunk add up to a genuinely substantial repair, and every strike that chipped paint is a future rust spot with a salt season coming. Walk around the car in raking light the day after a storm, and photograph what you see.
A comprehensive claim, and why the first estimate decides everything
Hail belongs to comprehensive coverage, not collision: no other driver, no fault assigned under any rules, just your comprehensive deductible and the work. Check two things before assuming. First, that comprehensive is actually on your policy — it is optional in Ontario, and a policy with only the mandatory coverages leaves hail as an out-of-pocket decision, which we will price honestly for you. Second, the calendar: notify your insurance company promptly once you find damage, since Ontario policies expect notice within seven days.
The place hail claims go wrong is the count. An estimate written from a couple of overhead photos in soft light will miss a third of the strikes, the low figure gets approved, and the repair then limps through supplement after supplement while your car occupies a bay. We refuse to start that way. The car comes in once, each panel goes under angled lighting that throws every dent into shadow, the strikes are counted and mapped panel by panel, and your insurance company receives a single estimate that covers the whole storm. From then on the adjuster’s questions come to us.
Panel by panel, the right repair for each
One storm produces several different repairs. Shallow strikes in accessible steel are worked back to shape from behind the panel and need no paint at all. Deeper hits that stretched the metal or cracked the finish are repaired and refinished, with the colour blended into the surrounding panels. A roof or hood hammered hard enough may be more honestly replaced than rescued, and aluminum panels — common on the newer SUVs this neighbourhood favours — behave differently under a hammer than steel and are assessed on their own terms. Each panel gets the method that suits it, and every refinished surface carries the lifetime paint warranty.
After a storm that touched the west end, booking early matters more than urgency later — everyone hit that afternoon calls the same week. Send photos the day you find damage and we hold you a slot for the in-person mapping. Drop-off runs Monday to Saturday from 8 AM, the GO from Exhibition and Line 1 handle your trip back downtown, and if your policy includes a rental we line its dates up with the booth schedule so the car is not away one day longer than the repair needs.
- Every panel mapped under angled lighting before the estimate goes out
- One complete figure to your insurance company, not a chain of supplements
- Reshape, refinish, or replace decided honestly for each panel
- Lifetime warranty on all refinished paint
