Skip to main content
Roofing + exterior restoration
K. Simon Construction logo

Field guide

Storm damage: what to document

After hail, wind, or a hurricane, the most useful thing you can do from the ground is build evidence. This guide covers how each kind of damage reads, what to photograph and when, and how to assemble a dated record, without climbing anything and without promising an outcome that is not yours to promise.

Request a roof inspectionCall 888-NOW-ROOF

Document from the ground. A storm-damaged roof is more dangerous than a sound one: loosened material, hidden soft spots, and wet surfaces put even professionals at risk. Watch for downed power lines before you walk the yard. If water is coming in right now, stopping it comes first: go to emergency roofing and photograph afterward.

The premise

Your job is the evidence. The coverage call is the insurer's.

After a storm, two separate things happen. You gather a record of what the storm did to your property. Then, if you carry a policy that responds to it, your insurer inspects and decides what is covered and for how much, under the terms of that policy. This guide is entirely about the first thing, because it is the part you control and the part that is easy to do badly.

A clean, dated record does one job well: it preserves the truth of the roof before repairs erase it. It is not a promise about a settlement, and no honest contractor can make one. Anyone who guarantees an insurance result, or offers to make your deductible disappear, is telling you something about themselves, not about your roof.

Build the record for its own sake. Photographs tied to locations, a timeline, and preserved materials are useful to an adjuster, to a second contractor, and to you, whatever any single decision turns out to be.

For how a storm response actually runs, and what carrier-ready documentation involves, see storm restoration. This guide stays on your side of that process: the evidence you can gather before anyone arrives.

Reading the damage

Three storms, three signatures

Hail, wind, and hurricane damage do not look alike, and the difference is readable from the ground once you know what separates them. You are not diagnosing; you are describing what you see accurately.

Hail

How it reads
Hail damage is scattered and random, not directional. On the roof it shows as bruises and dents with no pattern, sometimes with the granule surface knocked off in a soft round spot. The tell is usually off the roof, at ground level.
Where to look
Look at the soft metal around the house: gutters, downspouts, vent caps, the mailbox, the air-conditioner's outer fins, window screens. Dents and dimples there are the same stones that hit the roof, and they photograph from the yard. Fresh granules washed into the gutters or piled below a downspout point the same way.

Wind

How it reads
Wind damage is directional and concentrated at edges. It lifts, creases, tears, or removes shingles and ridge caps, usually worst on the slopes and corners that faced the gusts. A shingle that was folded back and dropped often leaves a crease line even after it lays flat again.
Where to look
From the ground you may see a gap where a shingle is gone and the darker mat shows through, caps flipped along a ridge line, or debris and torn pieces in the yard and gutters. Note which direction the storm came from; wind damage clusters on the windward side, and that pattern is part of the record.

Hurricane

How it reads
A hurricane combines extreme wind, wind-driven rain, and flying debris, so it leaves several signatures at once: stripped sections, failures that start at edges and ridges, and water pushed in even where the covering held. Damage tends to be widespread, across the whole structure and up and down the street.
Where to look
Wind-driven rain finds its way behind the covering, so interior stains can appear on a roof that still looks intact from outside. Document the neighborhood-wide pattern and the storm date alongside your own house; both belong in the record. If water is actively coming in, mitigation comes before photography.

Damage often hides in plain sight at the details. The roof detail atlas walks the valleys, flashings, and edges where storms do their quietest damage, all observable from the same safe ground.

What to capture

Six habits that turn a phone into a record

You do not need special equipment. You need a routine, followed soon after the storm, that produces photos someone else could actually use.

  1. Start wide, then move in close

    Photograph the whole house and each elevation first, so anyone reviewing the record can see context and orientation. Then zoom in on specific damage. A close-up with no wide shot to place it is a detail nobody can locate; a wide shot with no close-up is a claim with no proof.

  2. Date everything, and keep the storm date

    Turn on the timestamp or let the phone's own date metadata stand, and write down the date of the storm itself. Dated photos taken soon after the event separate this storm's damage from wear that was already there. A weather report or public storm date for your area is worth saving with the photos.

  3. Photograph the collateral, not just the roof

    The dents in the gutters, downspouts, vent caps, air-conditioner fins, screens, and painted surfaces corroborate what hit the roof. This ground-level evidence is often clearer and safer to capture than anything on the roof, and it is the part an untrained eye can document well.

  4. Capture the inside too

    Ceiling and wall stains, and from an accessible attic hatch, water tracks, wet insulation, and daylight where there should be none. Interior evidence shows the damage did more than cosmetic harm, and it dates the intrusion when you note when the stain appeared.

  5. Keep the pieces and the receipts

    Set aside shingles, caps, or metal that blew off rather than throwing them out; they are physical evidence. If you tarp a leak or make an emergency repair to prevent more damage, photograph it before and after and keep the receipts. Preventing further damage is expected of you, and documenting that you did it is part of the record.

  6. Do not discard damaged material until it is documented

    Before any repair covers or removes damage, make sure the condition is photographed from more than one angle. Once the roof is repaired, the only remaining proof of what it looked like is the record you made. Build that record first.

The professional record

What a contractor's damage documentation should contain

Your record and a contractor's overlap, but theirs goes further. When a roofer documents storm damage, this is the standard the report should meet, whoever wrote it.

  • Photos tied to slopes and locations

    Not a folder of loose close-ups. Each image should be placed: which slope, which elevation, which detail. A slope-by-slope layout lets a second reader, including an adjuster, find each item on the actual roof.

  • A stated method for how damage was assessed

    Roofers commonly mark a set area, a test square, and count and describe the hits within it rather than guessing across the whole roof. A report should say how the surface was evaluated, so the finding can be checked rather than taken on faith.

  • Representative close-ups with the collateral noted

    Clear images of typical hits, plus the soft-metal and ground-level collateral that corroborates them. Good documentation connects the roof to the dented gutter and the granules in the splash block, because together they tell one consistent story.

  • Interior and moisture findings where they exist

    Attic observations, moisture readings, and interior staining, dated. These separate active damage from cosmetic marks, which is the same distinction the inspection question set asks any inspection to make.

  • A written scope you can hand to anyone

    The documentation should stand on its own for a third party to read. That is the same standard a sound inspection meets, and it is what lets you get a second opinion without starting over from a blank roof.

Notice what is not on that list: a promised outcome. A contractor documents the roof and can meet the adjuster on site, but the carrier decides coverage against your policy. The same evidence-first standard runs through the roof inspection question set, which is worth bringing to any storm-chasing crew that knocks.

The insurance boundary

Where documentation ends and the policy begins

Knowing the line keeps you calm and keeps you safe from the crews that blur it on purpose.

A claim is between you and your carrier. Your documentation supports it, an adjuster inspects the property, and the carrier decides what the policy covers and pays. A contractor can help you understand what they found and can be present when the adjuster visits, but a contractor does not approve claims, set coverage, or control the amount. Any of those framed as a promise is a signal to slow down.

Two more cautions worth holding after a big storm. Be wary of anyone who arrives with the weather, pressures you to sign before an inspection is documented, or asks you to sign over your claim. After a hurricane or hail event, out-of-area crews follow the damage, and the contractor questions about licensing, insurance, and a written scope matter more than ever. When residential and commercial storm response differ, the residential storm and commercial storm pages each cover their own case.

Storm just passed?

Get the damage documented before repairs erase it.

Request an inspection and get a dated, slope-by-slope record you can hold onto, whatever the claim decision turns out to be. Tell us what you are seeing and where the property is; calling is the fastest way to reach us.

Request an inspectionHow storm restoration works
Call now Inspection