After the storm

The first week

What you do in the first few days matters more than what you do in the first month, and nearly all of it is recording rather than repairing.

Photograph the roof from the ground on every side before anyone touches anything, and photograph what has landed in the yard. Photograph the inside, including ceilings that are only slightly stained, because a small stain on day two is a large one on day thirty. Note the date and which storm it was. If shingles are on the lawn, leave a few where they are until they are in a picture.

Then stop the damage getting worse. Most policies require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further loss once you know about it, so a tarp or a temporary dry in is not an admission and not a problem. Keep the receipt. What you should not do is start permanent repairs before the insurer has seen it, because at that point the evidence is gone and the argument becomes your word against a photograph nobody took.

What a wind claim is actually about

Around Mobile Bay the argument is rarely whether there was a storm. It is whether this particular damage came from that storm or from age. A roof at eighteen years with brittle shingles and a failed vent boot will leak after a hard blow, and an adjuster is entitled to say the blow did not cause the condition.

That is why a roof that is inspected and photographed before storm season is worth so much more than one that is not. The homeowner who can show what the roof looked like in May is having a completely different conversation in September.

Where the damage is real, the things that decide it are the pattern and the location. Uplift damage runs along edges and rakes. Impact damage is scattered. Debris damage is local to one area with a story attached. Somebody who knows the difference is worth having on the roof when the adjuster is there.

The deductible nobody reads until they need it

Coastal Alabama policies commonly carry a separate deductible for named storms, written as a percentage of the insured value of the house rather than as a flat dollar figure. On a house valued at three hundred thousand dollars, two percent is six thousand dollars, and people discover that at the worst possible moment.

Read that line on your own policy now rather than later. If the number surprises you, it is a conversation to have with your agent while nothing is happening, and it also changes the arithmetic on whether a FORTIFIED roof is worth doing, because the wind discount pushes the other way.

Who is allowed to do the work

Alabama licenses this. Residential construction, remodeling or repair costing more than ten thousand dollars in labor and materials together requires a Home Builders Licensure Board license, and a company holding a limited license needs a separate residential roofers license for roofing work. After a big storm the number of trucks in the area goes up sharply, and this is the simplest filter there is.

Ask for the license, then look it up rather than looking at the card. It takes a minute and it removes most of the problem.