Windstorm

We had a windstorm here a couple of weeks ago and the phone hasn't stopped ringing for all of the blowoff calls. Last week we had over 80 phone calls. Never been so swamped in all of my years. I only have one full time repair guy so I've had to pull one of the guys off of the crew to help out. We've had over 200 more lead calls at this time than a year ago. Good for business but hard to keep up with. Repair guy goes out and does 8 a day and comes back to the office to find 10 more on his desk. Windstorm = Ka-Ching!

We had 100 mph straight line winds here in 2001. In the month leading up to the storm we were extremely slow. I was selling stuff to pay the bills. Went from that to 50 calls per day. We actually took over 250 calls for estimates in the first 5 days.

That was my introduction to insurance work and all that comes along with it. It was just before Exactimate and the insurance companies were still telling all the home owners to collect 3 quotes.

Even though I had no experience with the insurance frenzy at the time, we still did pretty well. Instead of going out and just replacing blown off shingles, we would cover the spots with #30 felt ($350) and give a whole roof replacement quote.

It was the craziest thing I had ever been a part of. I had to go back out numerous times and quote only the back side/front side. You name it. Some insurance companies would not pay until you drew a diagram of the roof on graph paper with all the measurements. ( This was before Eagleview and the like also ).

I saw so many homeowners with just one or two shingles blown off get a whole new roof and then others with dozens of places damaged get only a repair.