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Hail damage is mostly invisible from the ground, and it does not stop being damage because you cannot see it. After wind, hail or a named storm, we get on the roof, find what the storm actually did, and photograph and write up every finding so your carrier has specifics to assess. The inspection is free.
What a storm does
Homeowners tend to look for missing shingles after a storm, because that is the damage that is visible from the lawn. Missing shingles are the least ambiguous kind and often not the most expensive. The two forces do quite different things, and both matter.
Wind does not usually rip a shingle off. It lifts the tab, breaks the seal strip that bonded it to the course below, folds it back, and lets it drop into place looking untouched. That fold is a crease, and the fiberglass mat inside the shingle is broken along it. From the ground the roof looks fine. From four feet away the crease is obvious, and the shingle will pass water for the rest of its life. Wind works the edges first: rakes, eaves, ridge caps and the corners where pressure is highest.
Hail bruises. A stone strikes the shingle, fractures the mat underneath, and knocks the protective granules loose. What is left is a soft, dark spot you can often feel with a thumb before you can see it. Once the granules are gone, the asphalt beneath is exposed to ultraviolet light and starts to fail years early. That is why hail damage is a real loss even when the roof is not leaking yet: the storm did not open your roof, it shortened it.
The reliable places to read a hail event are the soft metals, because they dent and hold the dent: vent caps, gutters and downspouts, flashing, roof vents, air conditioner condenser fins, mailboxes. Adjusters look there too, and for good reason: a bruise on a shingle is a judgment call, while a dented vent cap is a measurement.
Insurance policies carry deadlines for reporting a loss, and the further you get from a dated storm the harder it becomes to attribute damage to it rather than to age. A roof inspected shortly after a named event, with the date of that event on record, is a much more straightforward claim than the same roof inspected two years later. If a storm has come through, having it looked at costs you nothing and preserves the option.
After the storm
In order. The first three are worth doing before you call anybody, including us.
How it runs
01
We go up and document what the storm did: creased shingles, bruising, soft metals, siding and gutters. Photographs, in a file, dated.
02
If the roof is letting water in and can be safely accessed, we dry it in before anything else happens.
03
Findings written up in a form an adjuster can work from, and we will be at the property to show them what we found on the roof.
04
Repair or full replacement, scoped to what the storm actually did. If the damage is local, the scope stays local.
Common questions
The questions homeowners ask us most often after a storm. If yours is not here, call and ask.
Mostly you cannot, from the ground, and that is the whole problem with hail. Bruising is a soft spot in the mat with the granules knocked off it, usually easier to feel than to see and invisible at any distance. What you can check yourself is the soft metal: dented gutters and downspouts, dinged vent caps, marked flashing, bent condenser fins on the air conditioner. If those took hits, the roof took the same ones.
Get it inspected first, then call. Reporting a documented loss is a simpler conversation than asking whether you might have one, and the inspection costs you nothing. If the roof turns out to be worn out rather than storm damaged, we will say so: age and wear are not covered events under a homeowners policy, and filing on them tends to end in a denial on your record.
Policies vary and they do carry reporting deadlines, so the number that applies to you is in your policy. Ask your agent rather than a contractor for it. The practical point sits alongside the legal one: the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to tie damage to one dated storm rather than to age.
Your agent is the right person to answer that, because it depends on your carrier, your policy and your claim history. None of that is visible to a roofer. What we can tell you is exactly what the storm did to your roof, so the decision is at least an informed one.
Not necessarily. After a regional event, adjusters are working through a large number of properties quickly, and hail bruising is among the easiest damage to miss. If our documentation records damage that the report does not, that is worth raising with your carrier, and we will hand over what we found. The outcome is your carrier’s decision, not something we can promise. If a second look says the roof genuinely is not damaged, you will hear that from us as well.
Where the roof can be reached safely, yes. A tarp keeps water out of the house until conditions allow the actual repair. Nobody goes onto a roof during an active storm, or onto a structure that is not safe to stand on, so in those cases the first job is getting water managed from inside.
No. You choose who works on your house. A carrier can recommend a contractor, and their preferred programs are often convenient, but the decision stays yours.
Typically yes for sudden damage from a covered peril such as wind or hail, and typically no for wear, age or a maintenance problem. Flood is separate again and sits under a National Flood Insurance Program policy rather than your homeowners policy. The exact answer is in your own policy, including your deductible and whether wind and hail carry a separate one, so your agent or carrier is the right place to confirm it. What an inspection settles is the other half of the question: what the storm actually did.
The rest of the exterior
Tell us where the house is and which storm came through. We will document what it did while the date is still recent.
Rather talk it through? (252) 544-6845
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