How a roof claim actually works

Photograph everything, immediately

Wide shots that show the house, close shots that show the damage, and pictures of the inside where water came through. Dated, before anybody touches anything. An adjuster can work with photographs; they cannot work with a description.

Get an independent assessment first

Filing a claim that turns out to be under your deductible costs you nothing but is on your record anyway. Find out the scale of the damage before you pick up the phone.

Read anything before you sign it

An assignment of benefits hands control of your claim to a contractor. There are legitimate uses for it and it is also the single most common way homeowners lose control of a claim. Never sign one on the doorstep.

Know what your policy actually pays

Replacement cost pays what it costs to replace the roof today. Actual cash value pays that minus depreciation, which on a fifteen-year-old roof can be most of it. Find out which you have before you file, along with your deductible.

Stop further damage, and keep the receipts

Emergency mitigation is normally recoverable and routinely forgotten. Save the paperwork for the tarp as carefully as the paperwork for the repair.

Mind the deadline

Policies impose time limits on reporting damage, and they are shorter than people assume. Damage found late — hail in particular — is often denied simply because too long has passed.

In short

The homeowners who do well out of claims are not the ones with the worst damage. They are the ones with the best photographs.