The First 72 Hours After A Hailstorm

By Taylor Grant, licensed public adjuster · Published June 22, 2020 · Updated September 24, 2026

What you do in the three days after a storm decides how the next six months go. Here is the order, what to photograph, what to sign, and the one door-knock offer that should end the conversation.

The storm passes, the street fills with trucks, and within an hour somebody is at your door with a clipboard. What happens over the next three days sets up everything - the evidence you will have, the scope of the claim, and who is negotiating it.

Here is the order.

Hour one: safety, then water

Look for the things that hurt people or get worse by the hour. Downed lines, gas smell, ceiling sagging under trapped water, broken glass, a skylight or window that is now an open hole.

Your policy requires you to protect the property from further damage. That is not optional and it is not a favor to the carrier - failing to do it gives them a reason to deny the part of the loss that got worse. Tarp the opening, board the glass, move what is under the leak, get the water extracted.

Photograph the damage before you cover it. A tarp over an unphotographed hole is a tarp over an unprovable hole.

Keep every receipt. Emergency mitigation is a covered cost under almost every property policy, and it is paid on top of, not out of, the repair money.

Hour two to day one: document it like you will have to prove it

Assume that in eight months you will be explaining this to someone who was not there. The full method is here, but the short version:

• All four elevations, wide, from a consistent distance.
• Every dented soft metal at close range - gutters, downspouts, vents, fascia, screens, the AC condenser.
• Siding and windows on the storm side, photographed at a low sun angle.
• Interior: ceilings, walls, flooring, the contents that got wet.
• A ruler or a coin next to anything where size matters.
• Video: walk the property once, narrating the date and what you are looking at.

Write down the date and time of the storm, what you heard, how long it lasted, and anything you saw hit the ground.

Day one: report it, and ask for the policy

Call the carrier and open the claim. Get the claim number, the adjuster's name and their direct number. Ask two things in writing:

• A digital copy of the policy in force on the date of loss. In Colorado we cite C.R.S. section 10-4-110.8, which is also why we ask for a certified copy within thirty days.
• The reserve they are setting on the claim.

Both requests are ordinary and both tell you something. You cannot argue about coverage you have never read.

Day one to three: the door-knockers

There will be a lot of them, and some are good companies. Three rules:

Do not sign anything that assigns your claim. A contingency agreement, an "authorisation to inspect," an AOB - read what you are handing over. If a document lets a contractor deal with your insurance company directly, you have just given away the negotiation.

Do not let a contractor adjust your claim. In Colorado, negotiating a claim on someone else's behalf requires a public adjuster license. A roofer doing it is unlicensed, and if it goes wrong you have no recourse.

If someone offers to cover, waive, eat or "work with you on" your deductible, end the conversation. Colorado's roofing statute specifically prohibits a roofing contractor from paying, waiving, rebating or absorbing an insurance deductible. Anyone offering it is telling you they are willing to break a statute in the first five minutes of knowing you, and it also drags you into a false claim.

A good contractor will happily inspect, document, and give you a real estimate without asking for a signature on anything but a contract to do work after the claim is settled.

Day two to three: confirm the storm on the record

Pull the National Weather Service storm report for your county and date. Note the largest reported stone size and the nearest report to your address. Save the page. This is free, it takes five minutes, and it pre-empts "our data shows no hail at that location."

Before the adjuster comes out

• Have your photographs organized by area.
• Have your own contractor's estimate if you can get one, or at least have your contractor there.
• Have a written list of what you want looked at, including the parts nobody looks at: gutters, siding, screens, the condenser, detached structures, code upgrades, and any interior damage.
• Be on site. Follow them. Note what they marked and what they walked past.

The inspection is the claim. What the adjuster photographs and writes down that morning is what the estimate will be built from, and everything after that is you arguing to add things back in.

And then

The estimate arrives, and it is a starting number. Read the guide to the whole claim before you decide whether it is a fair one, and read the estimate line by line rather than looking at the total.

If you want someone who does this for a living to look at it before you accept anything, that is a free call.

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