Hail damage and insurance dispute

[salennon07]

Hey everyone, got a question to see if anyone else has had to deal with something similar. We live in a newly constructed house in north ames, so our roof is just a couple of years old. We were in an area that got leveled by the hail the other Friday.

Anything facing south on our property or any neighbors is destroyed. Sidings have holes and cracks every few inches and vinyl fence has holes everywhere.

The contractor also said we 100 percent have roof damage (which I anticipated based off everything else). Anyway, the insurance adjuster, travelers, came out and only used a drone to assess the roof.. Which they are claiming only had 3 hits and doesn't qualify for a new roof. Literally every single neighbor I've asked has said they're getting a new roof.. So I assume my roof wasn't miraculously spared.

The contractor is going to submit more photos to the adjustor of what they deem damage. But I'm not really sure what to do beyond that if they don't agree.

 

[BCClone]

A drone? Adjuster is getting lazy. I can’t help on the first steps but the last step is to get a new insurance company.

 

[salennon07]

A drone? Adjuster is getting lazy. I can’t help on the first steps but the last step is to get a new insurance company.

Yep, that is definitely what's going to happen as soon as I get this settled.

 

[mynameisjonas]

You need to line up another inspection, you can appeal it, but make sure that the adjuster and the contractor are there at the same time so that the contractor can show the adjuster exactly what he’s looking at. The adjuster is going to do everything that he can to avoid the contractor, so you need to micromanage the next inspection to make sure they are lined up together.

 

[Big Daddy Kang]

Yep, that is definitely what's going to happen as soon as I get this settled.

Get a lawyer then a new insurance company.

 

[OriginalKccyclone]

I've gone thru this recently. Request that an adjuster come out. Travelers is a good insurance company to work with. Probably sent a drone as the adjusters (human) are in strong demand and short supply. BTW, there are hail reports that a good roofing company can provide to Travelers. These will document that hail coverage and size impact. More than likely, Travelers has this report too.

 

[salennon07]

I've gone thru this recently. Request that an adjuster come out. Travelers is a good insurance company to work with. Probably sent a drone as the adjusters (human) are in strong demand and short supply. BTW, there are hail reports that a good roofing company can provide to Travelers. These will document that hail coverage and size impact. More than likely, Travelers has this report too.

The adjustor actually came out, he was from Eastern Iowa and unfortunately not local. I had it lined up to have the contractor out at the same time, which he was - however I felt the insurance adjustor drug out the visit and eventually the contractor had to leave for his next appointment (missing the roof inspection). However the contractor was up on the roof before the adjustor was there to claim it was damaged. I saw there is a Travelers branch in DSM and was debating giving them a call to see if there is anyone local who could give a second opinion.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

A drone? Adjuster is getting lazy. I can’t help on the first steps but the last step is to get a new insurance company.

Every company is transitioning to drones. Way safer. They don't want aging adjusters on roofs.

Shocking but younger people aren't lining up to be insurance adjusters.

 

[Saul_T]

Get another adjuster out. This happened to us. We kept bringing out adjusters until we heard what we liked.

 

[ruxCYtable]

Hey everyone, got a question to see if anyone else has had to deal with something similar. We live in a newly constructed house in north ames, so our roof is just a couple of years old. We were in an area that got leveled by the hail the other Friday.

Anything facing south on our property or any neighbors is destroyed. Sidings have holes and cracks every few inches and vinyl fence has holes everywhere.

The contractor also said we 100 percent have roof damage (which I anticipated based off everything else). Anyway, the insurance adjuster, travelers, came out and only used a drone to assess the roof.. Which they are claiming only had 3 hits and doesn't qualify for a new roof. Literally every single neighbor I've asked has said they're getting a new roof.. So I assume my roof wasn't miraculously spared.

The contractor is going to submit more photos to the adjustor of what they deem damage. But I'm not really sure what to do beyond that if they don't agree.

There should be an appeals process. When we first moved to Colorado, Safeco pulled the same thing on me. We appealed, they sent out another adjuster and replaced the roof.

After you get your new roof, call me and I'll write you with West Bend!

 

[ISUTex]

Hey everyone, got a question to see if anyone else has had to deal with something similar. We live in a newly constructed house in north ames, so our roof is just a couple of years old. We were in an area that got leveled by the hail the other Friday.

Anything facing south on our property or any neighbors is destroyed. Sidings have holes and cracks every few inches and vinyl fence has holes everywhere.

The contractor also said we 100 percent have roof damage (which I anticipated based off everything else). Anyway, the insurance adjuster, travelers, came out and only used a drone to assess the roof.. Which they are claiming only had 3 hits and doesn't qualify for a new roof. Literally every single neighbor I've asked has said they're getting a new roof.. So I assume my roof wasn't miraculously spared.

The contractor is going to submit more photos to the adjustor of what they deem damage. But I'm not really sure what to do beyond that if they don't agree.

Do you have All State?

 

[SCNCY]

A drone? Adjuster is getting lazy. I can’t help on the first steps but the last step is to get a new insurance company.

It might be fore insurance purposes. When I was looking at buying a rental property in Providence (3 unit), inspectors wouldn't go on the roof due to insurance reasons. They had a limit regarding how tall the building could be in order for insurance to cover them.

 

[nfrine]

There should be an appeals process. When we first moved to Colorado, Safeco pulled the same thing on me. We appealed, they sent out another adjuster and replaced the roof.

After you get your new roof, call me and I'll write you with West Bend!

West Bend was absolutely rock solid with the derecho. Highly recommend them.

 

[ScottyP]

Maybe ask to have the adjuster get his eyes checked or have him clean the lens on the drone camera.

 

[Agclone91]

I'm about to have a major headache on my hands with this too. Contractor came out Monday and only estimated our roof at 20% damage, and said I will probably have to choose between the insurance company wanting to replace the damaged shingles and leaving things mismatched, or replacing the whole roof and paying for a majority of it out of pocket.

Waiting on the insurance adjuster to come still, so we will see what they say.

 

[TXCyclones]

Yep, that is definitely what's going to happen as soon as I get this settled.

Good luck with that. Typically no other insurance company will take you for two years following a claim.

 

[keepngoal]

West Bend was absolutely rock solid with the derecho. Highly recommend them.

This!

 

[keepngoal]

Good luck with that. Typically no other insurance company will take you for two years following a claim.

I don’t think this is true.

 

[ICCYFAN]

I lived in Apple Valley, MN when a massive hail storm came thru circa 1996. All four homes immediately surrounding me got new roofs. My Nationwide adjustor, who spent a significant amount of time on site, indicated no hail damage on our roof. I work in the insurance industry and asked a property claims adjustor from our office, a friend who was on the CAT team, to look at my roof. We scoured that roof and found nothing - I was with him! It made no sense as the family minivan, parked by my wife in front of the garage (as opposed to inside where it belonged), was peppered.

Just sharing an experience - sometimes, even when you don't want it, your roof is "miraculously spared".

 

[Shawker]

They're a big company but Nationwide was great to work with when we had our roof replaced two years ago. We live in Grimes and between the derecho in 2020 and a serious hail storm in 2021 pretty much everyone in our neighborhood needed their roof replaced. I filed a claim and literally within 4 days of the adjuster coming out I had a large check in my hands.