Roofing and hail damage, what you need to know before you need to know.

When your home is damaged by weather the last thing you need to worried about is if your covered by insurance. Hail can and will happen in Wisconsin and you should really have insurance against it. Hail damages roofs when it slams into them at terminal velocity which is something like 33 feet per second per second. Meaning that every 33 feet it doubles its speed, up to right around 127 miles per hour just before slamming into your homes roof. Hail will sometimes damage your roof in just enough cracking to be barely visible, which will cause most damage because people don't see the cracking, thus fail to make nessessary repair.

When checking your roof for hail damage, always wear the proper safety gear and restraints. People do fall and unfortunately die from falls from roofs every year.

The Nebraska Department of Insurance states in their webpage that it takes hail over 1" to cause significant roof damage. While its what they do, I have a hard time believing this as if your roof is somewhat dried out and brittle, it could be smaller hail that will cause damage.

Obviously when hail comes down it hits in a small area, so once your up on the roof look for small smash marks and signs of random small smash marks.

If you have hail damage, get to your phone and call up the insurance company to set up an appointment with an adjuster. SAVING TIME IN THIS AREA WILL SAVE MUCH TIME IN OTHER AREAS, remember, other people have hail damage too.
The very next thing I would do is collect some other kinds of hail damaged objects to show the adjuster, they are looking for things they can also use to justify their own claims. Then proceed to secure your roof as much as possible, as it generally is your responsibility to do such things in this type of emergency.

Typically a reputable insurance company will always adhere to your insurance policy guidelines, however, if you feel that you have not been treated properly or fairly you can contact the state insurance commission in your area. Most roofing contractors are willing to work your claim as well. This can be especially useful if you're a busy person and don't want to deal with them yourself.

Remember , get 3 bids or more before considering any of them. Make sure your comparing apples to apples as they say… that way you can show the contractors the other guys bid, which usually changes they way they think and helps them come to an end game in their minds during the negotiation phase.


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