With a severe storm of any kind — tornado, hailstorm, hurricane (remember Ivan?) or another Snowpocalypse — your roof can take a tremendous beating.
After calling your insurance company to put in a claim for storm damage, your next call should be to a local roofer.
Selecting a Storm-Ready Contractor
Not every roofer is ready to repair storm damage. It is not just the physical destruction your Birmingham home’s roof suffers. What about your contractor’s history of working with insurers? What about schedules? What about storm chasers?
Avoid storm chasers, those contractors who swoop in to collect an up-front insurance check, lay down a shoddy roof, and move on. Enlist only well-established roofers with local physical addresses. This will weed out a lot of headache-inducing, opportunistic roofers.
Next, select a roofer known for working with insurance companies. This is easy to test. When calling around for estimates, ask how long the contractor has worked with your insurance company. Not any insurer — yours. In most instances, long-established, community-based roofers will know the adjuster, the claims process, and may even have the insurer’s office on speed dial.
Schedule
Storm repair generally follows two steps:
- Initial inspection, securing of the property, and estimate
- Actual roof repair
Depending on the severity of your damage, your roofing contractor may not make you a top priority. If so, consider yourself lucky! Your unlucky neighbors may get a lot more attention because they suffered more damage. Chances are your damage falls into line with everyone else’s. Your Birmingham home may not require as much work as you think. Your job may then be scheduled after others.
Assessment
Your roofer will work with the adjuster to gather evidence of your roof damage. You have one job during this process: stay safely out of the way. A professional contractor can evaluate the situation and know what is safe to leave for later and what needs immediate attention.
Let the insurance adjuster and contractor work out the details. All you need is to trust both professionals to do right by you. By selecting the best local contractor, you can relax and trust the crew, the materials, and the results.
Please turn to Yellowhammer Roofing for a professional, fast response when storms strike. We have long experience working with insurance companies. We understand your worries, and we are ready to help make things right. Contact us today!
Recovering from storm damage is not usually the best time to make big decisions. A typical adult brain needs quiet, calm, and security to operate well. Right after a storm attacks your Birmingham home you may not be thinking clearly or making wise decisions. If you keep two professionals in mind — your insurance agent and your local roofer — you can leave much of the sharp thinking to others.
Be Choosy
Choosing a roofing contractor is many times more important than choosing a specific type of shingle. A really good contractor can install a modestly priced roof so well and it will provide years of service. A really bad contractor could slap down extremely expensive roof so poorly that a year later your roof leaks.
Be choosy. Select a local roofer to work with your own local insurance agent for emergency repairs. Make sure your roofer has a physical address to weed out storm chasing, untrustworthy operators.
Be Honest
One of the weaknesses of contracting work is the slim oversight of some here today-gone tomorrow contractors. They swoop in, claim to know how to handle insurance companies, and swoop out with a check. They often leave behind a substandard roofing job, but they “save” you the deductible.
How? By being dishonest. They ask you to sign off on an invoice which is exactly the cost of your deductible greater than the job. They offer a “sign posting fee” exactly equal to your deductible as an “allowance” for posting their yard sign on your lawn.
Stick with honest roofers dealing honestly with insurance adjusters. You will pay a deductible, yes, but in return you will get a superior roofing job.
Pro to Pro
One of the hallmarks of a reputable roofer is the roofer’s willingness to meet and work with your insurance company’s representatives, from agent to adjuster to inspector. Let the professionals handle the headaches. You did your job by selecting a top-notch, local, reliable roofer. While you need to know what steps everyone is taking, you need not get between the honest communication flowing between the professionals.
Yellowhammer Roofing has a long tradition of doing superior, careful, local work. We can handle storm emergencies, regular roofing repair, and entire new roofs with equal ease. Most importantly, we pride ourselves on honest work done at honest prices. Contact us today to see how we can smooth your storm repair project.
