When a hail storm hits your town and home, one of your first steps is to file an insurance hail claim. Once you file a claim for hail damage, the next step in the process will be that your insurance company will schedule an appointment with their adjuster. The adjuster represents your insurance company directly, or they can act as an independent adjuster. Either way, they come out to your property and assess all the damage caused by the hail. You should have your roofer meet the insurance adjuster at your home for this appointment.
Here’s why:
The adjuster’s typical process begins with the roof inspection first and then the remaining surrounding property. They will then write up a report and estimate to fix any damage that has occurred from that particular storm on that particular date. Then they either give you the report and estimate right on the spot or will mail or email it to you usually within 24 hours up to 2 weeks. This will come with an AVC check, minus your deductible. You will use this to start your project(s) and provide some initial payments to your roofing company or general contractor.
This seems pretty straight forward right? Not so fast!
When a “CAT” storm AKA Catastrophe storm hits, this means that a major storm has severely damaged many homes and properties. Depending on the CAT number qualifier, ex. CAT-1, CAT-2, etc. up to 5, will determine the strength and amount of damage the storm caused in that area. The lower the number the less damage from the storm. A CAT-5 storm is the biggest storm with the most damage. When these size storms hit, the local insurance companies are inundated with calls from their insureds filing insurance hail claims.
The local insurance adjusters do their best to give estimates on all the properties they can that have been damaged. But remember, they work for directly for their insurance company. Their job is, number one to do a good job, but number two, they still work for the insurance company. So sometimes not all damage is found…
There’s more on adjusters…
Many of these adjusters complete to 8-10 roof inspections a day. If it takes an hour to do a quality assessment, that’s 10 hours a day without including drive time, meals, or even bathroom breaks. That’s a long day everyday, plus at night they have to do all of the paperwork. We do not envy these guys/ gals that do this work. It’s hard and very physically demanding. However, with this kind of work load, they can get in a hurry. They could possibly miss items that were damaged only because their work load is so stacked that they need to move on the the next roof claim.
Here’s is where a great roofing company is worth their weight in gold!
Reputable roofing contractors will meet the adjuster at your property and walk the roof and property with the adjuster. This tends to slow the adjuster down to be able to locate ALL the roof hail damage and other damage on the entire property. Sometimes they may ask for the roofers help or opinions about the property damage. Reputable roofing companies are extremely familiar with insurance claims and by no means tell the adjuster how to do their job. But they act as an assistant to help find all damage to be included in the claim.
Remember earlier I mentioned that your deductible was subtracted from your payout (initial AVC check). If you’re going to be paying $1000 or more for your deductible, you might as well get all of your monies worth in having everything that was damaged, first identified, then ultimately repaired or replaced. Common items that are missed are gutters, awnings, decks, stucco or siding, paint. Other items are, windows and window screens, play equipment, patio furniture and BBQ grills. Your roofer can help get you thousands in additional dollars that you will have in order to fix or replace everything that was damaged by the storm that may have been missed.
Wrapping it up.
Make sure you take your time and interview 1-3 roofing companies before you get this far in the process. Do your research on the roofing contractor. Check them out on social media, their ratings on the BBB or Google. Make sure you feel comfortable with their terms and guarantees and ask for references. That being said, meeting the adjuster, especially when there is a big and far reaching hail storm, is a lot of work and time invested by your roofing company. They are for you and have put in the extra time to make sure you get all that you deserve out of your insurance hail claim. Reward them by giving them your business!
If you are looking for a trustworthy A+ rand 5 star rated roofing company in Colorado Springs, CO that provides professional roof inspections, roof replacements, roof certifications and roof repairs, call 719-748-6364 or visit us Klaus Roofing.
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