Hail hit my house, what should I do next?
So you’ve just been through a hail storm. What’s next? Do you just call your insurance agent and ask them to file a claim? What does hail damage even look like?
Most insurance companies agree to replace a hail damaged roof when they find between 8-10 hail hits per square on each side of the roof. North, south, east and west. A “square” is a 10’ wide by 10’ high section of the roof or 100 square foot section. When an insurance adjuster comes to inspect your roof they will draw test squares on each side of the roof and begin to circle the hail hits with chalk. Each hail hit looks like a black mark on the shingle, where the hail impact knocked the granules off of the shingle in a round spot. Why does the insurance agree to replace the roof w/ just a few black spots on the roof? Because if the impact is hard enough to break the back of the fiberglass matt of the shingle it can cause a leak eventually. The granules that we knocked off by the impact were protecting the asphalt (water proofing layer) of the shingles from the sun’s UV rays. When the UV ray’s deteriorate the asphalt and exposes the break in the fiberglass matt you now have a hole.
You do not, however want to file a claim until you know that there is enough damage to warrant doing so. In the insurance industry there is a phrase that is one you never want to hear. It is called a ZERO DOLLAR claim. What is a $0 claim? Well it’s just as it sounds. It’s a claim where the adjuster found no damage and didn’t issue a check to the insured. I don’t understand all the in’s and out's of the insurance underwriting process, but from what I understand, a $0 claim is worse to have than a claim of $20,000. Ask your agent about this for more details.
However it is important to have your roof inspected by a roofer you can trust, who will give you an honest assessment on the state of your roof.
After working in Colorado in the roofing industry for the last decade, I’ve witnessed through dozens of major hail storms and many more smaller ones. What I’ve found is that not many people know what to do after a storm. And unfortunately there are more than a few roofers who take advantage of that fact. I’ve seen so many roofs w/ little to no damage, where the customer had a roofer recommend that they file a claim. “Why would a roofing company recommend filing a claim when there is little to no damage?”, you may wonder. Well the sad truth is that it doesn’t hurt them if your insurance adjuster comes out to your home and denies your claim. The roofer will simply argue that “your insurance company is doing you wrong”. And with all the horror stories we’ve all heard about shady insurance companies doing the wrong thing, their story could be believable.
Now there is a flip side to this. I’ve also done inspections and seen roofs w/ little to no damage that the insurance company had already been out and approved the claim for. You see some insurance adjusters are sub contractors. They get paid to go out and do the inspection, but then also get paid more based on the size of the claim they write up. The larger the claim they write, the more work they have to do, so it makes sense that they get paid more. That could offer a reason as to why they write up some claims that don’t have much or any damage. So when the roofer recommends you file a claim w/ no damage he is rolling the dice. If the insurance buys the roof, he then looks like the hero that got you a roof from insurance, but if not, then he just blames the insurance.
Not all roofers are shady and neither are all insurance companies. Over the years I’ve met many honest roofers and worked with quite a few upstanding insurance adjusters on claims. Find a roofer that you can trust.
