Why Your Contractor Might Fail You Next Winter
By Seth Stenner, CSP | President and Co-Founder, Pro Snow Solutions
Over the last three winters, Abbotsford recorded just 73 cm of total snowfall.
The 80-year average? 194 cm.
That’s the lowest three-year stretch for snow removal ever recorded. Less than half of normal.
This winter, Vancouver went without accumulating snow for the first time in 43 years. The second-warmest winter on record.
It’s easy to look at the last three years and think: winters just aren’t that bad anymore.
But that thinking is exactly what makes the next real winter so dangerous.
The short version: The last three winters are the mildest in 80 years of records. That sounds like good news. It isn’t. Budgets, contracts, crews, and contractor capacity across the Fraser Valley have quietly drifted into a position that a normal winter will expose in days.
1. What Happens When Contractors Take On 30 More Properties?
To be fair, there are good snow removal companies in the Fraser Valley. But the bar is higher than most people realize.
Contractors who barely got tested over three mild winters are adding more properties than ever. Routes that looked easy in mild weather have never been tested in a real storm. Equipment that was never pushed hard has never broken when it mattered.
And most of the newer crews they rely on have never seen a real storm. Think about it… anyone new to snow removal since 2023 has barely experienced snow in the Fraser Valley. Experience comes from hard winters. We haven’t had one in three years.
Picture this… A snow removal contractor with four trucks picks up 30 new properties during the mild stretch bringing their total portfolio to 80 sites. First real storm, two trucks break down on night two. With his 10-hour routes now taking even longer, his crew is running on no sleep. He starts choosing which properties to skip. Three property managers call the next morning asking where he was. Some can’t get ahold of the contractor at all. The ones that do just hear excuses about equipment breakdowns.
How do we know this happens? Because we’re the ones who get the calls for help. During every major storm, property managers reach out asking if we can take over mid-event. By that point we’ve already turned down two dozen snow removal requests that day. The time to make that decision was before the season started.
2. The “All Contractors Look the Same” Illusion
In a mild winter, every snow removal contractor looks fine. Salt goes down. Routes get done. Nobody gets tested.
But salting and snow removal are completely different beasts.
“Any schmuck can salt and brine. It takes a true professionally-run operation to maintain snow removal quality through a week-long snow storm.”
Picture this… A property manager switches to a cheaper snow removal contractor after two quiet winters. No complaints. Then winter comes back. By day three of the first real storm, the contractor stops showing up. Trucks broke down. Crews didn’t come in. Nobody can take a new client mid-storm. The parking lot sits uncleared. A senior slips near the entrance. Now it’s a liability event. And the property manager has to explain to ownership what happened, why they chose the cheaper option, and why there’s no documentation showing the contractor was even on site.
During past heavy winters, we’ve received calls and emails from property managers whose snow removal contractors disappeared mid-storm. It happens every time.
The stress of that situation is completely avoidable. The liability exposure is not something you can fix after the fact.
Ask your snow removal contractor this: what happens on day four of a storm?
If they can’t tell you how many backup trucks they have, how many reserve crews, or how much work is on each route, you already have your answer.
3. The Forgotten Cost: Slip-and-Fall Liability
Slip-and-fall risk doesn’t build slowly. It spikes. Claims cluster during the worst stretches of winter, exactly when contractors are most stretched thin.
In Canada, a single slip-and-fall claim can run $50,000 to over $250,000. A fractured hip can approach $500,000. There is no ceiling on liability. One bad week can create multiple claims across multiple days, and each one stands on its own.
Picture this… A 75-unit strata building. Three mild winters. The walkways have been fine. Then a black ice event coats everything overnight. The snow removal contractor is spread thin and doesn’t arrive until mid-morning. An elderly resident falls in the parking lot and breaks a hip. The legal process takes two years. The strata pays out $180,000 after their deductible. One fall. One morning. One contractor who showed up too late.
Here’s what most property managers and strata councils don’t think about until it happens. A serious claim doesn’t end with the insurance payout. If the case goes forward, a plaintiff’s lawyer will dig into how the contractor was chosen. Did you ask about their equipment capacity? How many other sites they service? Did you review their insurance and documentation process?
Emails, meeting minutes, and budget decisions from years before the incident are all fair game. Cost-saving choices that seemed reasonable at the time look very different when read back under oath in the context of a severe injury. If the court finds the contractor selection or service process fell below a reasonable standard of care, consequences can reach beyond the deductible. Premiums rise. Reputations take a hit. Properties can become uninsurable. And the people who made the decisions spend years wishing they had done things differently.
In nine years and over 60,000 services, every slip-and-fall claim filed against our clients has been successfully defended. We have never paid a single deductible or settlement.
That’s not luck. That’s GPS-tagged documentation on every visit, clear snow removal service triggers, weather documentation, proper procedures, equipment reserves, and crews with the depth to reach your property on time. Plus, you’re covered by our $5M insurance.
4. The Budget Trap
Three mild years make it easy to base next year’s budget on recent spend. But the last three years are the worst possible baseline.
Picture this… A strata council cuts their snow removal budget after three mild years. By February, the reduced budget is already used up. They cancel the remaining contract to stop the bleeding. Two weeks later, a late-season storm rolls through. No snow removal contractor. No service. No documentation. A resident falls on an untreated walkway and files a claim. The money they saved on snow removal doesn’t come close to covering it.
Seasonal contracts lock in your cost before winter starts. You pay the same whether it’s mild or heavy (up to a cap). Over an average multi-year period, seasonal contracts tend to cost less than the per-service equivalent.
The properties best positioned when winter returns are the ones that maintained their coverage through the quiet stretch.
What We’ve Chosen to Do (and Not Do)
Pro Snow Solutions has held our site count flat for three seasons, and we’re doing it again for 2026/27. Four consecutive years of intentionally capping our growth, despite turning down dozens and dozens of properties. We’ve invested heavily in better systems, technology, more full-time staff, more dispatchers, additional equipment, and supply yards closer to our customers. But we have not added more properties. We won’t grow until we’ve been tested in a real winter and performed to our own standards.
Backup equipment (parking lots and drive lanes). We maintain about 1 spare plow truck for every 10 sites that require plowing. That’s 22 completely unallocated plow trucks solely reserved for breakdowns and heavy snow. Expensive to operate, but necessary. Many contractors have very little to nothing in reserve.
Staffing and route capacity (walkways). On a salt event, 12 walkway crew teams could cover all our sites. But we send up to 40. Why? When a snowstorm hits, we need 120 walkway teams deployed for our routes to be complete in less than 6 hours. This way, instead of rotating through our 120 teams in ten salting events, it only takes three. Over-deploying salt shifts allows us to cycle hundreds of teams, with careful quality control, through your actual properties, keeping them sharp and ready. We cap snow routes at 5 to 6 hours (industry standard is 10 to 12) so we can do two services a day per property, for a week straight if needed. If we loosened these standards, we could easily take on more properties. But that would come at the cost of timeliness, reliability and quality, which doesn’t meet our standards. Again, expensive to operate, but necessary.
The math. We likely invest two to three times more in readiness than a typical snow removal contractor. That, plus $5M insurance. Certified Snow Professional and Advanced Snow Manager designations. Six-source weather monitoring across 16 cities. GPS-tagged documentation on every visit. Four industry-leading guarantees. And much more. We spread those costs across 275+ properties, so you get the preparation without the premium.
The Bottom Line
A mild winter hides problems. A real winter exposes them. For snow removal, by the time you see the difference, it’s too late to switch.
Are you paying for salt, or are you paying for the snow removal company that keeps your property open, your liability protected, and is still there on day 7?
If you’re reviewing snow removal coverage for 2026/27, now is the time to lock it in. Once the season starts, capacity is already long spoken for.
Current customers: Reach out at team@prosnowsolutions.com.
New to Pro Snow? Request a quote here.
Pro Snow Solutions. Nine years. 275+ intentionally capped properties. Over 60,000 snow removal services. Every slip-and-fall claim successfully defended. Zero deductibles. Zero settlements. Capacity limited for 2026/27, four years running.
Snow Removal Service Areas: Richmond, Maple Ridge, Abbotsford, Mission, Aldergrove, Pitt Meadows, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Burnaby, Langley, Surrey and Vancouver.
Data: Environment and Climate Change Canada, Abbotsford Airport Station. abbotsford.weatherstats.ca