What to Do After a Hail Storm Hits Your Roof

When a hail storm hits Austin, the first instinct is to get up on the roof and look. Don't. Most of what matters in the first 48 hours happens on the ground, and a few of the things people do in a hurry can hurt them, hurt the roof, or weaken an insurance claim later. Here is the order that works.

1. Wait until it is actually over

Central Texas storm lines often come in waves. Lightning, gusting wind and a second cell twenty minutes behind the first are all reasons to stay inside until the radar is clear. Hail on the ground also makes every hard surface, including a roof, treacherous.

2. Write down the date and time

This sounds trivial and it is the single most useful thing you can do. A roof claim rests on when the hail fell. Note the date, the approximate time, and how long it lasted. If you can, photograph a few hailstones next to a coin or a ruler before they melt. Later, you can confirm what the storm record shows for your ZIP on our hail alerts page, which tells you whether a hail event is on record near your address and on what date.

3. Inspect from the ground, not the roof

Walk the property with your phone. You are looking for:

• Dents in gutters, downspouts and metal roof vents. Soft metal shows hail long before shingles do.
• Splatter marks on the driveway, fence or AC unit, and dents in the AC unit's fins.
• Torn window screens, chipped paint on siding, and damage to outdoor furniture or the car.
• Shingle granules piled at the downspout outlets, and any shingle pieces in the yard.
• From a distance, shingles that look lifted, torn or missing.

Photograph all of it, wide shots and close-ups, with the date visible in your camera roll. Our post on the signs of hail damage shows what each of these looks like. Hail damage to shingles themselves is usually invisible from the ground, so a clean-looking roof means nothing yet.

4. Check the inside

Look at ceilings and the tops of closets for new stains, and walk through the attic with a flashlight if you can do it safely. Fresh water marks on the underside of the decking or damp insulation mean the roof is already leaking. That moves you to step 5 today rather than this week.

5. Stop active leaks, but only temporarily

If water is coming in, a tarp over the affected slope and a bucket under the drip are the right moves. What you should not do is make permanent repairs before the roof has been inspected and, if you have a claim, before your insurer's adjuster has seen it. Keep receipts for tarps and any emergency work; they are typically part of a claim.

6. Get a professional inspection

A trained inspector gets on the roof, chalks and photographs the hail hits slope by slope, checks the soft metals, and tells you straight whether the damage is real and how extensive it is. Alta's inspections are photo-documented and you get the full set, which is the record you will want whether you pursue a claim or not. Hail bruising fractures the shingle mat under the granules; it often does not leak for one to three years, which is why waiting to see if a leak shows up is the wrong test.

7. Report the damage to your insurer

If the inspection finds hail damage, report it to your insurance company. Most Texas policies limit how long you have after the storm to report a loss, often 365 days, so the date you wrote down in step 2 is the number that matters. Keep a record of when you called and who you spoke with. Our guide to how insurance covers roof replacement explains what happens next, and documenting roof damage for a claim covers what to have ready.

One thing to know before you call: hail damage and wind damage are handled differently, and adjusters look for different evidence. If the storm brought both, read wind damage vs. hail damage first.

8. Be careful who you let on the roof

Within a day of any big storm, out-of-town crews start knocking on doors. Some are legitimate. Many are not. The warning signs: pressure to sign something today, an offer to "waive" or "cover" your deductible, a request for payment before any work, and no local address you can drive to. In Texas, offering to absorb a deductible is a crime for the contractor, and a homeowner who goes along with it can be left holding the claim. Our post on storm chaser roofing scams goes into detail. Work with a company that was here before the storm and will be here after it.

9. Keep everything in one place

Your storm notes, photos, the inspection report, the claim number, adjuster contact, and every receipt go in one folder. Claims are won on documentation, and a tidy folder is the difference between a two-week process and a two-month one.

What Alta does and does not do

We inspect, document, photograph and repair or replace roofs. We are not a public adjuster and we do not negotiate claims. When a claim needs negotiating, that is the job of a licensed Texas public adjuster or an attorney, and we will tell you so.

If nothing looks wrong

Get the inspection anyway. The most expensive hail damage we see is the kind that went unnoticed until the claim window had closed. A twenty-minute look now is cheap insurance against a roof you pay for out of pocket later.