PSA for Weather Damage

Property insurance adjuster here (literally just got off a roof from a hail inspection where I handed the homeowner a check to replace the entire roof). Here's the rundown on how the process goes, and some of the ways it gets sidetracked: It hails. The hail is big and loud (roughly golf ball size; anything smaller rarely does serious damage that will warrant repairs, but you make the call on if you want to have it checked). Step 1: Your roof needs to be inspected by someone who knows what real hail damage looks like. Unfortunately, roofers are incredibly hit or miss on that. You'd think they know because they are roofing professionals, but the fact of the matter is they are salesman. They are the people OP was referring to that are aggressive. Whenever it hails, the roofing salesmen come out in force. But because they are salesman, they call EVERYTHING hail. They are trying to make a sale. Not very often do I encounter a roofer who is honest about what real hail damage is or not. If you want an honest opinion, you need to call your insurance agent and file a claim. Step 2. It might take a few weeks depending on how many claims are in your area, but they will send out an insurance adjuster (me). I get on your roof, and I look for all possible storm related damage. I get off the roof and immediately write an estimate for repairing or replacing anything that is damaged. If the estimate is higher than your deductible, I will write you a check (or even send a direct deposit to your bank) for that amount. End of process. Some notes: IMO, it is NOT a good idea to have a roofer present for the insurance inspection. It doesn't matter if you love that specific company, or the roofer is your brother, or whatever. They almost never have anything positive to add to the situation. They are often pushy and aggressive towards the adjusters because they think we don't know what we're doing even though we go through literal *months* of training to do our jobs. There are YouTube videos where you can see roofers hassling adjusters that are not helping the situation at all, and most adjusters would not engage those contractors. We would say they are distracting us from doing our jobs, and being argumentative on a roof is making the situation more dangerous, and we will end the inspection and set up a later date to come back. However, it IS always your option to have a roofer present. **Sometimes** they are able to point out something we missed. We're not perfect. Even today, I had a very young roofer meet me at a house, and going into it I didn't think we were going to see any damage because the hail wasn't very large in the area and the house had big trees all around it that provide some protection. The roofer had a very keen eye (the roof was a dark color that makes finding hail hits very difficult), and we actually used all the hits he found and got the policy holder a new roof. We likely would have found the hits just the same without his help, but he did save us a little time, so that was nice. Unfortunately, most roofers mark stuff that is not actually from hail and then get mad when we say there's no hail damage. Two reasons that people might want to hold off on filing a claim: if you file a claim and they send out an adjuster, you might get paid and be ready to do repairs, but you might need to wait until the hail season is truly over just to be sure you don't get your new roof hailed on again. This is no big deal, really. You usually have more than a year to do repairs from the date of the storm according to your policy. You want to be sure that you have real hail damage, if possible, because if you file a certain amount of claims within a certain amount of time, most insurance companies will jack up your deductible A LOT. So let's say you file a claim today, I come out and say your roof is actually really sturdy, and I'm not seeing any real damage. That's one claim. Then it hails even worse two weeks from now. You file another claim, and they send me out again. I say, wow, your roof is absolutely trashed. I write you a check to get it repaired, and you get it repaired. Now come winter, Greg Abbott still isn't holding power companies accountable and a big freeze hits and a pipe bursts in your house. That's claim #3 in the same year. Then, in the spring, it hails again. Bam, that's 4 claims in barely a year and a half. So I would wait and see if it hails anymore until around mid-June, and then file one claim that basically covers the hail season. The caveat to this would be if you're seeing any water leaking into the interior of the house anywhere. Now is a good time to bust out a flashlight and go give the inside of your house a thorough look. Check for water stains starting to appear. If you're seeing any, call your insurance company. Not a roofer.