After a Hail Storm in Northern Colorado: What to Do in the First Few Days

First, the safety check from the ground

Do not get on the roof. Wet shingles after hail are slick, loose granules roll underfoot, and the damage you are looking for is small enough that you would not see it from a ladder anyway. Walk the property instead. Look for broken skylights and windows, hail-stripped siding and screens, dented vents and gutters, and water coming in anywhere it should not. Then check the attic with a flashlight: wet insulation, drips on the underside of the decking, daylight through the roof.

Downed lines and leaning trees are the real hazards after a Front Range storm. Keep clear of both and let the utility handle the lines. Everything about the roof can wait a day; nothing about a live wire can.

Photograph everything before anything moves

Your phone is the most important tool of the week. Before a tarp goes on, before a branch is dragged off, before anyone sweeps the hail off the deck, photograph the house from every side, the ground around it, the hail itself next to something for scale, and every piece of damage you can see from the ground. Take video walking around the property. Screenshot the weather alert and the time of the storm. The Insurance Information Institute’s advice for any disaster claim is to photograph or video the damage to substantiate the loss, and the record you make now is the one that holds up later.

Keep the originals. Do not crop or edit them. Put them in a folder with the date and leave them there.

Temporary repairs, and the receipts

If water is coming in, stop it. A tarp over the damaged area, plywood over a broken window, a bucket under the drip. The Insurance Information Institute puts it plainly: take reasonable steps to protect your property from further damage, save the receipts for what you spend, and submit them to your insurer. The same guidance says not to make extensive permanent repairs until the adjuster has assessed the damage. Temporary means temporary.

If you are not comfortable tarping a roof, do not. A local roofing company can do a tarp job that keeps the water out without turning into a sales call; ask for exactly that and nothing more.

When to call your insurer

Soon, but with the photos done first. Policies set time limits for reporting a loss, and calling early also gets you the practical answers: what your deductible is, how the claim will be handled and what the timeline looks like. Ask whether your policy pays replacement cost or actual cash value for the roof, because the difference changes what the first check will look like. Write down the claim number and the adjuster’s name.

One thing we will say clearly, because the trucks in your neighborhood may not: whether the damage is covered, and for how much, is a decision between you and your insurer. A roofing contractor documents the damage; it does not decide the claim, negotiate it or promise what it will pay. Our insurance claim documentation page explains exactly what we do and do not do.

Get a documented inspection from a local company

Hail damage on an asphalt shingle is a bruise: a soft spot where the impact crushed the granules into the mat, sometimes with a mark you can see and sometimes not. It is found by walking the roof, feeling the shingles and marking each hit in chalk, slope by slope, then photographing the marks and the pattern. A hail and storm damage inspection done this way gives you a count per slope and photos you can hand to the adjuster, your insurer or any other contractor.

Get it done before the adjuster visit if you can, so you walk into that meeting with your own record. And get it from a company with a physical address in the area, for a reason the next section explains.

What to do when someone knocks

They will. The Colorado Division of Insurance warns homeowners every storm season about door-to-door roofing sales after hail and wind storms, and the pattern is the same every year: a free inspection today, a finding of damage, a contract to sign now, and often an offer to take care of your deductible. Our guide to local roofers versus storm chasers covers the full checklist. The short version:

• Take the card, keep the door closed, sign nothing
• Look up the company’s physical address and how long the website has existed
• Any offer to waive, pay or absorb your deductible is unlawful in Colorado; end the conversation
• Any contract that assigns your claim or your insurance payout to the contractor deserves a hard no
• A deadline on the offer is a sales technique, not a roofing fact

The adjuster visit

The adjuster will walk the roof, count hits in test squares and write a scope. Have your photos and the inspection report ready to share, and ask for a copy of the adjuster’s report when it is done. If the two reports disagree on what is damaged, you are entitled to ask your insurer how to resolve that; a written, photographed record is what makes the conversation about evidence rather than opinion.

Once the scope exists, the repair-or-replace question is usually answered by the pattern of damage: hits on one slope can often be repaired, hits across every slope usually mean replacement. Our article on how to decide between repair and replacement walks through that call. Whatever the answer, you choose the contractor. The insurer’s scope is about what is paid for, not about who does the work.