What to Do After a Hail Storm Hits Your Roof in Iowa

Every April we start getting the calls. Hail the size of quarters, wind gusts over 60 mph, and suddenly half the neighborhood has roofing company door hangers. If a storm just hit your area, take a breath. Here is exactly what to do and what not to do.

First thing: do not get on your roof. Seriously. Every year we see homeowners try to climb up and check things out themselves, and it never ends well. Wet shingles are slippery, damaged decking can give way, and you are not going to be able to see hail damage from up there anyway. Hail bruising shows up as soft spots in the shingle mat that you can only feel by pressing on them. Leave that to someone who does it every day.

Walk around your house from the ground and look for the obvious stuff. Dented gutters and downspouts are a dead giveaway that hail hit hard enough to damage shingles too. Check your AC unit, mailbox, and any painted wood surfaces for dings. Look in the yard for shingle granules, which look like coarse black sand. If your window screens have small holes or dents, your roof almost certainly took hits too.

Take photos of everything. Your phone is fine. Shoot the gutters, the yard, any visible damage on the roof from ground level, and any exterior damage to siding, windows, or outdoor equipment. Date-stamped photos matter when you file a claim, so do this the same day if you can.

Call your insurance company and open a claim. Do not wait to see if there is actually damage first. In Iowa, you generally have one year from the date of the storm to file, but adjusters get slammed after big storms and the longer you wait the harder it is to prove the damage was from that specific event. Open the claim, get your claim number, and then call a roofer.

This is where it gets tricky. After every major storm, out-of-state roofing crews flood into Iowa. They knock on doors, offer free inspections, and pressure you to sign a contract on the spot. Some of them do decent work. A lot of them do not. They will be gone in six months and so will any warranty they gave you. Before you sign anything, check that the company has an Iowa contractor license, a real local address (not a P.O. box), and reviews that go back more than one season.

When you do get an inspection, a good roofer will document every single damage point with photos and write a detailed report. That report is what your insurance adjuster uses to approve the claim. We always recommend being present for the adjuster visit or having your roofer meet the adjuster on site. Adjusters are not trying to deny your claim, but they are looking at your roof for 20 minutes. Your roofer has been up there for an hour. They catch things the adjuster might miss.

A few things people get confused about. Your insurance covers the cost to replace your roof minus your deductible. The roofing company does not pay your deductible for you. That is illegal in Iowa and any roofer who offers to waive your deductible is breaking the law. Also, your insurance payout is based on the scope of damage, not on which contractor you pick. Get your roof fixed right, not cheap.

One more thing. If the storm damaged your roof but you were already thinking about selling your house, get it fixed anyway. A pending insurance claim or visible roof damage will kill your sale faster than anything else. Buyers walk away, and the ones who do not will lowball you by way more than the repair would have cost.

We have been through 36 storm seasons in Central Iowa. If your roof took a hit, call us at (515) 967-8199. We will come out, inspect it, give you an honest report, and help you through the insurance process from start to finish. No charge for the inspection and no pressure to hire us.