If you’re like many homeowners, you may wonder, “What should I do after a hail storm?” Keep reading to learn the exact steps you need to take after a hail event.
Take a Hail Picture
The first thing you should immediately do after a hail storm is to step outside (as soon as it is safe) and get some closeup shots of the hail. This helps establish the size of the hail, and provides proof that hail occurred on your property on that specific date.
Mark the Storm Date
The next thing you’ll want to do is make a note of when the hail storm occurred. If you have a note taking app on your phone, enter the date when the hail storm occurred. It’s a good idea to attach your hail photos to your note.
Have Your Property Inspected
While there’s no harm in walking around your property to check for obvious damage, it’s best to call a professional in to get a detailed inspection of your property. Here at Texas Metal Master, we provide this as a free service.
When we come out to your property, we’ll do a thorough inspection. Naturally, we’ll take a close look at your roof to see if it shows signs of wind or hail damage. We’ll also take a look at other parts of your home and property that might be damaged, such as your home’s siding, window screens, and A/C fins. It’s not unusual for fences to sustain hail damage, so we’ll check that as well.
After we’ve completed our inspection, we’ll discuss our findings with you. If it appears you’ve sustained wind or hail damage, you can then call your insurance company and file a claim.
Insurance Adjuster's Assessment
After you’ve called your agent and filed a claim, the insurance company’s adjuster will get in touch with you to schedule a time to come out and assess your property for damage.
The adjuster will do two things. He will make a determination on whether your property appears to have hail or wind damage. Secondly, he will determine the initial scope of the repairs.
Hiring a Contractor
If the adjuster determines that your property has been damaged, he’ll provide a document detailing the recommended repairs. It’s now up to you to find a contractor to complete the work that the adjuster has outlined.
We recommend vetting your contractor for two very important qualities: Customer satisfaction and insurance experience.
Customer satisfaction is a pretty obvious criteria for selecting a contractor. You can read online reviews and even talk to past customers of the contractor to see if the contractor can be trusted to do quality home repairs.
Insurance experience is the second criteria. What your adjuster won’t tell you is that his initall repair scope is not the final word, but more like a first draft. A contractor that is skilled at working with insurance will be able to determine if there are additional items that the adjuster should have included in the scope.
For instance, here at Texas Metal Master we utilize Xactimate, which is a comprehensive software tool that provides standardized repair estimates for all types of property repairs. With this tool, we can double check the adjuster’s numbers for accuracy and completeness.
Because of our experience in working with insurance companies and our knowledge of the laws that insurance companies have to adhere to, it’s not unusual for us to be able significantly increase the size of your claim.
Summary
Now that you know what to do after a hail storm, the process is really quite simple. Here’s a summary of the steps:
Immediately after the hail storm, get a photo of the hail and write down the date.
Call a professional to inspect your property.
If your property shows signs of storm damage, call your insurance agent to file a claim.
Schedule a date to have the insurance adjuster assess your property damage.
Hire an experienced, reputable contractor to complete the repairs on your property.
Am I Too Late?
Even if it has been a number of months since a hail or wind storm occurred, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for a roof inspection. As long as it has been less than a year since the storm, you should still be able to file an insurance claim.
Give us a call or click the button below to request our free roof inspection.