‘Most costly’ storm of 2025: Sask. hail insurance company flooded with claims

While lightning was streaking across the prairie skies on Wednesday night, hail was pounding Saskatchewan crops.

For the Municipal Hail Insurance, that means the phones have been ringing all day.

“Things are humming, we’ve got a couple hundred claims already,” said Rodney Schoettler, CEO of Municipal Hail Insurance. “The reports that are coming in from the claimants are (that) it’s severe and lots of damage.”

Substantial crop loss in Mendham area from last night #skstorm as well as hail shred and broken trees pic.twitter.com/zqgNbFDf4O

— Jenny Hagan LostInSk (@LostInSk) August 21, 2025

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Schoettler said it usually takes people a day or two to make a claim, so he expects the number to grow.

“I’m guessing this storm will be 500 to 1,000 claims,” he said. “It should be the biggest event of the year, and it will definitely be the most costly.”

Scary storm just outside of Saskatoon tonight. Got some dents in the hood and a few cracks in the windshield. Then got a tornado alert. Some cars had windshields blown out. Pretty terrifying to experience. #skstorm @weathernetwork pic.twitter.com/FCJVITg91M

— Christine Thiessen 🇨🇦 (@ThiessenCLT) August 21, 2025

Due to it being so close to harvest, a lot of the crops have matured, making them more valuable, causing the damage cost to skyrocket.

“There was lots of wind and rain with this (storm),” he said. “It’s going to be up there with the big ones (this decade), so in our office for the year of 2025, it’s certainly going to be one of the major events of the year.”

Schoettler said it’s still too early to know where the most damage was done, but there are some early indications.

“If you go from Saskatoon to Humboldt, that looks like it’s going to be pretty heavy and big,” he said. “North Battleford to Rosthern looks like a lot of volume is going to come, and then if you go down to the southwest in that Leader area… from what the people are saying it’s pretty nasty there too.”

I found large hail in the North Battleford area tonight#skstorm pic.twitter.com/BQrLPbpqBf

— Hank Vlietstra (@FlatlanderHank) August 21, 2025

According to Environment Canada, some areas saw pea and loonie-sized hail, and Schoettler said the size of the hail isn’t what worries insurance companies.

“One big stone will do way less damage than 100 small ones,” he said.

For farmers who do have damaged crops, there is a limited window to make a claim, according to Schoettler.

“(Farmers) have 72 hours to file a claim,” he said. “They’re going to go check (their field) look for broken plants, then they phone our office…we have a nice system set up where it’s easy for people to call in, reach one of our people and tell us when it hailed, (and) how many acres.”

Scoettler is warning that it could take up to three to six weeks to get to every insurance claim from this most recent storm.

“When you get claims like this, it does back up the system, because we have eighty hail adjusters,” he said. “I’m already going to warn producers that there’s going to be a delay due to the sheer volume of this.”

Schoettler said they are still working through claims from an Aug.13 storm as well.