What to do in the first seventy two hours after a hailstorm

Start at the top of this list and work down. It takes about forty minutes, none of it involves a ladder, and every step is something nobody can do for you later. The alternative is the common one: stand in the garden feeling vaguely worried, do nothing for three months, and then try to reconstruct the storm from memory in the spring.

1. Deal with anything actually dangerous first

   Downed lines, a tree on the structure, obvious structural damage, or water actively coming into the house. If a limb is through the roof or water is running down an interior wall, that is a phone call now, not a documentation exercise. Everything below assumes the house is safe and dry.

2. Write down the date and the time

   The date of the storm, roughly when it hit, and how long the hail lasted. If you can estimate the stone size against a coin or a ball, note that too. This sounds trivial. It is the single most useful sentence in the whole file later, because a hail claim frequently turns on tying the loss to a specific dated weather event, and the NOAA record for your county will either corroborate you or not.

3. Photograph stones, if any are left

   Next to a coin, a tape measure or a ruler, on a surface that will show in the frame. Hail melts fast in a Missouri spring and this photograph has a half life measured in hours.

4. Walk the perimeter and photograph the soft metal

   Downspouts, gutter faces, the air conditioning condenser fins, the garage door, window screens, painted trim, the mailbox. Shoot each one with the light raking across the surface rather than straight on, so dimples cast a shadow. Note which elevations have marks and which do not. The survey order in detail is here.

5. Photograph the house wide, from all four sides

   These are boring photographs and they are the ones that establish context: what the property looked like on this date, from every elevation. Take them anyway.

6. Look at the ceilings

   Room by room, particularly under valleys, around chimneys, and at the top of exterior walls. Fresh staining is a leak. An old stain that has not changed is a different problem. Photograph either.

7. Control water, do not repair

   If something is coming in, a bucket, a tarp inside the attic, and moving what is underneath is the correct response. Do not start repairing the roof, and do not throw away damaged material, because it is evidence. Emergency measures to prevent further damage are normally reasonable and are normally reimbursable; keep the receipts.

8. Do not sign anything at the door

   Within a day or two of a serious hail event there will be people on the street. Some of them are competent local companies. Some of them followed the storm here from three states away and will be gone by August. Nothing that arrives at your door needs a signature today. This is worth its own page and it has one.

9. Read your own declarations page before you talk to anyone

   Four things to find, all on the first page or two of your policy: the deductible for wind and hail, which on many Missouri homeowner policies is a percentage of the dwelling limit rather than a flat sum; whether roof loss is settled at replacement cost or actual cash value; whether there is a roof surfacing schedule that reduces the payout with age; and whether there is a cosmetic damage exclusion, which matters enormously if you have metal anywhere.

10. Get a documented inspection

    Photographs, test squares, measurements and a written scope, in your hand, whether or not there turns out to be anything wrong. That is a real finding either way, and it is the thing you actually need before deciding whether a claim is worth filing at all. What the inspection covers.

The decision that is genuinely yours

Whether to file a claim at all is a judgement, and it is not a roofer's judgement to make. If the deductible on a wind and hail loss is two percent of a four hundred thousand dollar dwelling limit, that is eight thousand dollars, and a finding of light granule loss on one slope may not be worth the claim. That arithmetic belongs to you, ideally with your agent, and it deserves the actual numbers rather than a stranger's enthusiasm. What the inspection gives you is the information to do the arithmetic with.