The Psychology of a Hail Claim - A Roofer's Perspective

My opinions only:

First of all, it is a huge help to go in with the understanding that hail damage assessment is far from settled science. There is so much influence by the adjuster's perspective, motivation, and experience that you should never go in assuming the adjuster will always pay what is owed to the insured. Ever!

Assuming he/she will have experience and integrity can put the roofer or insured behind the curve right off the bat and waste a lot of valuable time if a re-ispection or appraisal is required. Assume there is going to be a winner and a loser, because there often is. I will never lie about damage in an attempt to create a claim - knowing this gives me the confidence to push the claim as far as the adjuster makes me push it.

Adjusters are human, if only barely. :-) They are subject to psychology like the rest of us. Given that, we all know that a low slope commercial BUR is not like a shingle roof in that the damage can be very spotty. Hail can come in "swarms" and on a larger commercial roof there are often areas with worse damage and some with very little on the same roof. This can also happen as a result of a roofing crew doing a better job on some days than on others on the same roof, or if the weather was marginal on some days, e.g., a cold front blew in and yesterday it was 85 but today it is 50...it's a lot harder to get the hot pumped to the rooftop, into the mop cart, taken to the area being roofed, the bitumen mopped out and felt set in it before it cools too much...these areas can be easier to hail damage due to inadequate adhesion. Unsupported roofing membrane is known to be easier to hail damage. The adjuster often seems perplexed as to why the roof has damage, and 50' from there it has none. That is my first clue that the adjuster isn't all that experienced and I need to be prepared to stand my ground on the claim.

Given that, and given the normal psychology of the human brain, it has been my experience that the adjuster often makes up his/her mind within a few minutes of stepping off the ladder onto the roof. If damage is easily seen near the ladder, the adjuster often shifts into a mode of looking at the rest of the roof only to validate what he now thinks. Toward that, I always set my ladder up in the worst area of damage I can find. I then paint our a 10' x 10' area and circle the larger strikes for a density evaluation. The adjuster will normally need to verify that this kind of damage is in other areas of the roof, so I will do another density SQR on the opposite side of the building/roof.

Keep in mind that the insurance industry has passed legislation intended to protect their profits by limiting the involvement of the roofer. The roofer cannot act as an adjuster, but the roofer still has a right to defend his estimate to the adjuster - this is especially true if the hail damaged roof is his.