What to photograph before the adjuster comes

Before you start

• Stay on the ground. Nothing here needs a ladder. A wet or hail-bruised roof is slippery and easy to damage further by walking on, so the climbing is a roofer's job.
• Turn on the date and time stamp in the camera settings, and leave location on if the phone offers it. A file with the storm's date on it is worth more than a sharper picture without one.
• Work wide to close. For every item: one frame of the whole side of the house, one of the area, one close-up of the mark. Without the wide shot nobody can tell where the close-up came from.
• Take too many. Keep the originals uncropped and unfiltered, and put a second copy somewhere off the phone that evening.

Around the house from the ground

Walk the perimeter once, in daylight, and finish one side before moving to the next.

• Each elevation — front, back, left, right — in a single frame, with the roof edge visible.
• Gutters and downspouts: dents on the top lip of the gutter, dimples in the downspout elbows, splash blocks knocked loose.
• The soft-metal witnesses: window screens, air-conditioner fins, the mailbox, a garage door, a grill lid. These dent at hail sizes a shingle can hide, so photograph every one you have.
• Siding and trim: cracks, punctures, chipped paint, holes in vinyl.
• Windows, sills and torn screens.
• Debris where it landed — shingle pieces on the lawn, in beds and on the driveway.
• Fallen limbs and trees, with one frame showing where they struck.
• The fence, shed, carport and any detached garage, which are usually on the same policy.

The roof, from the ground or a drone

Use the longest zoom the camera has, from as far back as the lot allows, and take one frame of every slope. If you own a drone and can fly it safely and legally, fly it. Look for:

• Missing, lifted or creased shingles, and tabs folded back on themselves.
• Granules piled at the bottom of downspouts, at splash blocks and in the ends of the gutters.
• Bare black mat showing where granules have been knocked away.
• Flashing at walls, chimneys and valleys that has lifted, bent or pulled loose.
• Vents, turbines, pipe boots and the ridge cap.
• The ridge line, sighted along its length, and the drip edge.

Finish with one wide frame that shows the house and the roof together, so every close-up can be placed on a slope afterwards.

Inside

• Ceiling and wall stains: a wide shot of the room, then a close-up with the stain's edge visible.
• The attic, if it is safe to stand in: daylight through the decking with the lights off, wet or matted insulation, damp rafters and water tracks.
• Wet flooring, and damaged contents set aside rather than thrown out.

The paperwork to photograph or save

• The policy number and the declarations page.
• The date of loss, written down before memory blurs it.
• The official weather record for that date. The Storm Prediction Center publishes daily tornado, hail and wind reports; save your date’s page as a screenshot as well as a link, because the reports are preliminary.
• The contractor's written inspection, with their photographs attached.
• Receipts for tarps, plywood, board-up work and anything else bought to stop further damage.
• A plain log: date, time, who visited, what was said, what it cost.

The National Roofing Directory's guide to documenting roof damage for a claim covers the file itself, and its explainer on how a roof claim moves from notice to payment covers what happens after you send it.

Put something in the frame for scale

A dent means little at an unknown distance. Lay a tape measure, a ruler or a coin beside the mark and take the close-up twice, once with the object and once without. For a hailstone, measure across the widest point and photograph it on the ruler. A chalk circle around each gutter dent makes a line of them readable in one frame.

What not to do

• Do not clean up first. Sweeping granules, clearing limbs and replacing screens erases the evidence. The photographs come before the broom.
• Do not let anyone onto the roof without seeing their licence and current certificates of liability and workers' compensation insurance.
• Do not sign an assignment of benefits at the door. That kind of form hands your rights under the claim to someone else, and what it can do varies from state to state. Read it somewhere quiet and ask your insurer what it would mean for your claim.
• Do not write a cause on the photographs. Record what you saw; leave what caused it to the inspection.

Not sure the storm was big enough to matter? Run the roof inspection checker first, then take these pictures before anyone books work.

Frequently asked questions

The adjuster takes their own photographs. Why take mine?

Theirs are taken later, after wind, rain and cleanup have had time to work. Yours show the roof and yard on the day, which is the only version of that record anyone will have.

How do I photograph a slope I cannot see from the ground?

You do not. Note that it is out of sight and let the inspection cover it: a roofer with a ladder and insurance is the way to reach it, and their report joins the same file. To find one, start from the directory of roofing contractors.

How do I know what size the hail was?

Compare it with an object of known width and measure across the widest point. The hail size guide lists the standard comparisons and their diameters.