You document and file. The adjuster inspects and writes a scope. Your roofer should be on the roof with them. You pay the deductible; the claim pays the approved scope. Most trouble comes from thin documentation, a rushed adjuster visit, or a scope that leaves things out.
A hail claim is not complicated, but it has an order, and most of the frustration we hear about comes from doing the steps out of sequence. Here is how it runs for a Utah homeowner, in plain language.
Before anyone calls anyone, get the roof inspected. Not by an adjuster, by a roofer, and for free. The point is to know whether there is claimable damage and to have dated photos of it. Hail bruises on asphalt are subtle; dented vents and gutters are the giveaway that the hail was big enough to matter. A roofer who inspects for free and finds nothing has done you a favor.
The policy is yours, so the call is yours. Your carrier will ask for the storm date, what was damaged, and how you know. The inspection photos answer all three. They’ll assign an adjuster and schedule a visit, usually within a couple of weeks, longer after a big regional storm when every adjuster in Utah is booked.
Two things to ask on that first call. First, what is your wind and hail deductible? Many Utah policies now carry one separate from the standard deductible, and it may be a percentage of the home’s insured value rather than a flat amount. On a larger home that percentage can be a meaningful number, and you want to know it before the scope is written, not after. Second, is your roof covered for replacement cost or actual cash value? Actual cash value pays what the old roof was worth, depreciated for age. Replacement cost pays for a new one, usually in two payments, with the depreciation released when the work is done.
The adjuster gets on the roof, looks for hail and wind damage, counts hits in a test square on each slope, and writes an estimate of what it costs to fix. They’re trained and mostly fair, but they move fast after a storm and they don’t always get on every slope.
This is the step where having your roofer on the roof with them matters most. We walk the adjuster through every area we documented so the scope reflects the whole roof, and we make sure the items a quick pass misses are in there: ice-and-water shield at the eaves and valleys, which Utah winters require, decking replacement if any is soft, and the detach and reset if there’s solar on the roof.
The carrier sends a scope of work and a first payment. Read the scope. It should list everything the roof needs, line by line, in the same format any roofer’s estimate would use. If something is missing, this is when it gets added, through a supplement your roofer writes with the evidence attached. If the shingle on your roof has been discontinued and can’t be matched, that question belongs here too.
Your roofer does the job to the approved scope, most homes in a single day. If hidden damage turns up on tear-off, they document it and submit a supplement rather than eating the cost or surprising you. When the work is done, completion photos and the final invoice go to the carrier, and on a replacement-cost policy that’s what releases the second payment.
Your deductible. That’s it, under a normal claim. The approved scope is covered by the claim, and the work is done to it. A contractor who offers to waive or “cover” your deductible is proposing that the claim be misrepresented to your insurer, and the risk in that lands on the policyholder, not the contractor.
We’re roofers, not public adjusters. We don’t negotiate your claim or interpret your policy, and if you have a coverage question we’ll send you to your agent or the Utah Insurance Department. What we do is document the roof properly, meet your adjuster on it, do the work to the scope, and hand over the paperwork that closes the claim. That’s the roofing side, and it’s ours start to finish.
If the approved scope turns into a replacement, here is how to read the roofing estimate that follows.
The inspection is free, and we photograph everything we find.
