THE ONLY SOURCE FOR PROFESSIONAL ICI ROOFING CONTRACTORS IN ONTARIO ORN 6  ONTARIO ROOFING NEWS – WINTER 2018/19 President‘s Message Insuring the Roofing Industry By Mark Mollison, President, OIRCA T his column represents my first President’s Message in Ontario Roofing News since I was elected President at our An- nual General Meeting in January. My opening communication to the industry addresses a very im- portant issue facing the roofing sector today. My observation of the insur- ance industry is that it tends to be rather reactive. I suppose that is understandable, as it can be dif- ficult to predict unforeseen risk; and so it was in the early 2000s when a very hard insurance mar- ket hit the roofing industry. Reeling from tragic world events in 2001 and poor invest- ing, the insurance industry didn’t have a stomach for a poor per- forming sector. Enter the roof- ing industry and a rash of roof- top fires related to the torch application of modified bitumen roofing membranes. The Liberty Walk townhouse fire in May 2001 in Toronto, a new townhouse development, consisted of over 200 units. The fire was started by a roofer using an open flame torch, and a sleep- ing giant was awakened. Like other industries, insur- ance can be very competitive, and out of the ashes came a few insurers, along with a couple of creative brokers who were pre- pared to write business for the roofing industry in Canada. The result: high premiums, minimal coverage and something called a claims-made policy. These events took place before I assumed ownership of my roof- ing contractor business. I have heard the stories, though: mem- bers in fear that they wouldn’t be able to purchase liability in- surance, or not in the coverages necessary to operate in the con- struction industry; members on a Friday afternoon not knowing whether their crews would be working on Monday. In almost every case they were eventually sold insurance, but all they could get was one or two million dollars, and that cost them a premium of 400 per cent. Oh, and there was the matter of claims made versus occurrence coverage; the latter re- quired to meet construction con- tract commitments. Fast forward to August 2018 OIRCA Board of Directors President Mark Mollison Conestoga Roofing & Sheet Metal Ltd. First Vice President Tony Pocobene Atlantic Roofers Ontario Ltd. Past President Mark Baxter Semple Gooder Roofing Corporation Treasurer Peter Serino Soprema Inc. Director John Petrachek Atlas-Apex Roofing Inc. Director Bob Yule Beacon Roofing Supply Canada Co. Director Joel Dandele Dantech Building Technologies Inc. Director Ron Foran Foran’s Roofing & Sheet Metal Ltd. Director Rob Kucher Cardinal Roofing & Sheet Metal Inc. Director Stephen Patti Flynn Canada Ltd. Director Nelson Rites Crawford Roofing Corporation Director Barry Warner Covertite Eastern Ltd. Director Wesley Lamb Simluc Contractors Ltd. Director Doug Maikawa Trio Roofing Systems Inc. Ontario Roofing News is printed on 10% post-consumer FSC certified paper using soya based inks. When necessary to mail an issue in an enclosure, we use an environmentally- friendly, 100% oxo-degradable poly-wrap. ONTARIO ROOFING NEWS is a “market- ing and information periodical” published for the Ontario Industrial Roofing Contractors Association by MediaEdge Publishing. Advertising in ONTARIO ROOFING NEWS is restricted to the member companies of OIRCA. Published for: Ontario Industrial Roofing Contractors Association 940 The East Mall, Suite 301 Etobicoke, ON l M9B 6J7 Tel:(416)695-4114lTollFree:1(888)33-OIRCA oirca@ontarioroofing.com www.ontarioroofing.com Published by: 33 South Station St. l North York, ON l M9N 2B2 Tel:(866)480-4717lEmail:robertt@mediaedge.ca 531 Marion St. l Winnipeg, MB l R2J 0J9 Tel: (866) 201-3096 l Fax: (204) 480-4420 www.mediaedgepublishing.com President Kevin Brown Senior Vice President l Publisher Robert Thompson Director, Business Development Michael Bell Branch Manager Nancie Privé Editor Carlyn Schellenberg Graphic Designer Marisa Giesbrecht Sales Executive Pat Johnston All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, without the prior consent of the publisher. Published March 2019 Publication Agreement #40787580 and downtown Montreal, where 200 firefighters are called upon to fight a rooftop fire on the 30-sto- rey Bell Media office tower. The building was of course evacu- ated. The adjoining streets in that downtown section of the city were cordoned off and two roof- ers were sent to hospital. Thirty floors of businesses and hundreds of employees have yet to return to the building. The insurance in- dustry has woken up again. In between were 15 years of a soft insurance market for the roof- ing industry with endless cover- age and low premiums. The fires continued, but insurers seemed to turn a blind eye. Not even the loss of two firefighters on May 17, 2011 in Listowel, Ontario as a re- sult of a torch-related fire caught their interest. That incident did arouse the attention of the firefighting com- munity, and ultimately the Of- fice of the Ontario Fire Marshal. Changes needed to be made to the Ontario Fire Code. The OIRCA was contacted by a couple of Fire Chiefs from the GTA who looked to engage our support and bring about the necessary revisions to that code to limit future loss due to these types of rooftop fires. The Fire Chiefs introduced OIRCA to the Fire Marshal’s of- fice, and the two worked together to bring about those necessary changes. Much to the surprise of the ad-hoc OIRCA committee that had been assembled, the Fire Marshal was reluctant to adopt all its proposals. Still, we were mov- ing in the right direction. January 1, 2015 saw those revisions to the Ontario Fire Code become law. Canada continues to experi- ence serious fires as a result of the torch application of modi- fied bitumen roofing systems. Here in Ontario we have come to realize that those changes to the Fire Code in 2015 were not adequate. Further changes are desperately needed. In the fall issue of ORN our insurance colleague Simon Fenn has written “An Urgent Appeal to Adopt Risk Management in the Canadian ICI Roofing Industry.” He states in part that there is an urgent need in the ICI roofing industry to universally imple- ment risk management in order to ensure the future availability of liability insurance. The OIRCA Risk Management Committee embraces his advice. On page 16 of this issue of ORN is the “Inside the OIRCA” column, where we have reprinted a December 2018 OIRCA Mem- bers’ Bulletin entitled “OIRCA Submits Ontario Fire Code Changes to the Office of the On- tario Fire Marshal.” I encourage readers to read that article to learn why our Association has decided to take a leadership position on this matter. Incoming President Mark Mollison (right) thanks outgoing President Mark Baxter.