Understanding The Hailbelt & Roofers

More exaggerated non hail damage from those pesky storm chasers.

Natty, translation: Your competitors are kicking you butt and it's easier to blame them than yourself? :-)

Look, this is America. You do it your way and let the next guy do it his way. It sounds whiney to always be making excuses that everyone who is taking jobs from you is a fly-by-night. Sour grapes. Maybe they're just better than you.

We are like hundreds of others you call storm chasers. The reality is that we don't chase storms. Our trade areas are the Metroplex and West Texas, and yes, when they get a storm in our trade area we gear up to do more volume. It's foolish not to - in West Texas a whole town can get wiped out with hail. Guess what, in 12 months everyone in town will have a new roof and it will be slim pickings for years. You better had put some money in the bank to weather the years after the hail.

But more importantly, I'm not the least bit interested in doing the same old volume year after year. How dull. I want to grow and prosper.

And your fixation on this fantasy that most of these big hailstorms didn't happen, but were merely exploded into hailstorms by roofers, is just weird.

Roofguy Said: Farmers just paid $63 million for fraudulently underpaying claims.

Do you have anything to support this claim? I googled and found nothing.

Roofguy Said: Anyone who says differently has a limited breadth of experience, or a dog in the hunt.

Roofguy Said: Lon Smith Roofing grossed $140 million after the $1 billion hailstorm in Dallas in 1996. Every year after that he was in the top 25 in the US.

And that billion dollar hailstorm was not much of a storm. Like I said, it is a racket.

Yes, the system is broken. It is a 900 mph race between the insurance industry and roofers to see who can screw who first. Farmers just paid $63 million for fraudulently underpaying claims. Anyone who says differently has a limited breadth of experience, or a dog in the hunt.

Lon Smith Roofing grossed $140 million after the $1 billion hailstorm in Dallas in 1996. Every year after that he was in the top 25 in the US.

Roofguy Said: Now, add in that a local roofer can make north of $100 million on a hailstorm, and you begin to see why roofers like the hail belt.

Funny, I have lived my whole life-60 yrs- right in the middle of the hail belt and roofed that same area for 40 of those years. Yet, I have never experienced any hail larger than golfball size- and it was short lived and sporadic. I have seen the result of destructive hail about the size of baseballs- but never softball sized-maybe 3 times. This hail was the kind that busted windshields over a small area and the only roofs it totally destroyed were decades old tile roofs- again over a small area. Mostly, what I have seen is minor damage. If nothing was done to the roof, the roof would last its full life expectancy. Certainly nothing that would call for the immediate replacement of the roof and justification for the feeding frenzy of stormers which is always the result of these minor storms. What we have now is what I call the storm chasing racket. Since 1990, I have replaced only a handful of roofs that were not paid for by insurance. The system is broken.

Hail, Hail, the gang's all here!