Does this scenario sound familiar? A hail storm rolls through town causing damage to your entity’s buildings. A claim is submitted to CIRSA, the damage is estimated, and your entity goes through the process of having shingles replaced. Then, a few years after repairs have been made, another hail storm hits and the process is repeated.

These storms, and the damage they cause, place into motion a very time-consuming process for CIRSA members that is extremely expensive for both your entity and the insurance pool as a whole. In fact, over the past three years our member buildings have sustained over $19,000,000 in hail damage. To put this into perspective, this is more than the pool’s losses from the 2013 flood, which is our single largest property catastrophe on record.

Obviously, there is nothing that any of us can do about hail falling from the sky. However, when this type of loss occurs, there is an opportunity to replace the damaged asphalt shingles with a more hail resistant product.

When it comes to asphalt roofing, it is fairly common knowledge that shingles are separated into different classes (1 – 4). A Class 2 shingle is not as resistant to hail damage as a Class 3, and Class 4 is considered the most impact resistant. What is not common knowledge, is that more than one type of asphalt is used in the manufacture of shingles, and those made with polymer modified asphalt (regardless of class) have been determined to be significantly more hail resistant.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety conducted a study and concluded that polymer modified IR (impact resistant) shingles performed up to 50% better than traditional IR shingles. A copy of their report is available here (A summary of the findings is found on page 15 of the report).

We are aware of only a few manufacturers that make asphalt shingles with polymer modified asphalt. Malarkey Roofing is one of them. Because polymer modified shingles may be slightly more expensive than traditional impact resistant shingles, we approached Malarkey Roofing about offering CIRSA members a rebate when repairing hail damage. We are glad to announce that for 2018 Malarkey has agreed to a $5 per square (10” x 10” roofing area) rebate, which should be roughly 4% to 5% of the shingle cost.

This rebate is payable directly to CIRSA members. In some instances, this roofing material may be considered an upgrade to the roofing material that was damaged, so this rebate may help offset any uncovered cost.

If you would like additional information regarding the requirements to obtain the rebate from Malarkey, please give Mike Wagner or Craig Stevens a call at 800.228.7136.