Storm season: the week before, the day of and the day after

A big storm is three events for a homeowner: the days of warning, the hours it is overhead, and the weeks after when the roofing trucks arrive from three states away. Most of what goes wrong happens in the first and third, and both are in your control.

The week before

• Photograph the house. Every side, the roof from the ground, the fence, the outdoor equipment, the inside of every room. Date-stamped photos of an undamaged house are the difference between a smooth claim and an argument.
• Find your policy and read the wind and hail deductible. In many coastal and plains states it is a percentage of the dwelling coverage, not a flat amount, and a two percent deductible on a $400,000 house is $8,000. Know the number before the adjuster says it.
• Clean the gutters and clear the downspouts. Water that cannot leave the roof in a storm goes into the house.
• Trim dead limbs and anything touching the roof. Move or tie down anything in the yard that can fly: furniture, grills, trampolines, trash cans.
• If you have a generator, test it now, and buy fuel. Read the carbon monoxide piece in this section: outside, twenty feet from the house, never in the garage.
• Know where the main water and gas shutoffs are and how to turn them.

The day of

Stay inside and away from windows. Do not go on the roof, before or after, for any reason. If water comes in, put a bucket under it, poke a small hole in a sagging ceiling to let it drain into the bucket rather than spread, and move what you can. Photograph everything as it happens.

The day after

Walk the property and photograph again, before anything is moved or cleaned. Look at shingles in the yard, dents on the gutters and downspouts, holes in window screens, stripped paint on the siding. Hail leaves a pattern of marks on soft metal that an adjuster reads like a fingerprint.

Call your insurer and open a claim if there is visible damage. You do not need a contractor's estimate to open it. Cover any hole in the roof with a tarp, or have a local Pro do it; the policy expects you to prevent further damage, and the tarp is reimbursable.

When the trucks arrive

Within a day of a big hail or wind event, contractors from out of state will be knocking on doors. Some are fine. Some are not, and the bad ones have a script: free inspection, a promise to waive your deductible, a form to sign so they can talk to your insurer, a request for the insurance check up front.

• Never sign anything on the doorstep. An assignment of benefits or a contingency agreement hands your claim to a stranger.
• Deductible waiving is insurance fraud in most states, and the contractor who offers it plans to make it up in the work.
• Ask for the license number, the local address, and the name of the person who will be here in a year when a shingle blows off. A crew from six hundred miles away will not be.
• Get the estimate in writing with the scope, and compare it to the adjuster's. A good roofer works from the adjuster's scope and supplements it with what the adjuster missed; a bad one works from your policy limit.

A local Pro who was here before the storm will be here after it. HomeMaxx storm warnings go to Pros in the affected ZIP codes as the weather arrives, so the roofer who answers your call is one who was already in your area.