After a bad storm the phone rings all week, and the same question comes up every time: what is the adjuster going to look at? Homeowners tend to imagine the visit as a negotiation. It is closer to an inspection with a form attached. Knowing what is on that form makes the whole thing calmer.
Nothing here is legal or insurance advice, and every policy is different. Read your own policy, and ask your carrier directly about anything that affects your coverage. What we can describe is the physical side: what gets looked at on the roof, and how it is usually recorded.
The job in plain terms
An adjuster is there to answer two questions. Was there damage from the event you are claiming, and what would it cost to put right. Everything they do on site feeds one of those two answers. They are not trying to catch you out, and they are not there to tell you whether your roof is old. They are matching what they see against the event and the policy.
That framing explains a lot of behaviour that otherwise seems arbitrary. A worn roof with fresh wind damage can be a valid claim. A perfectly maintained roof with no storm-related marks may not be. Age is context, not the decision.
Marks that read as storm damage
Different weather leaves different signatures, and inspectors are trained to tell them apart.
Hail
Hail leaves round impact marks scattered without pattern across a slope. On asphalt shingles the mark is usually a soft bruise where the mat has been damaged and granules have been knocked clear, and it often feels tender under a thumb. Because hail falls from a direction, damage is usually heavier on some slopes than others, and there is normally matching evidence on soft metal around the house: dents in vent caps, gutters, downspouts, flashing, air conditioner fins and the mailbox. When the roof shows marks and none of that soft metal does, the marks get questioned.
Wind
Wind damage is directional and tends to follow edges. It shows up as creased shingles, tabs that have been folded back and laid down again, tabs missing entirely, and runs of shingles along a rake or ridge where the seal strip has broken. A crease across a shingle is the useful sign, because it means the shingle was bent past its recovery point even if it looks flat again from the ground.
What tends to be treated as wear
Some findings look dramatic to a homeowner but read as normal ageing to an inspector. Uniform granule loss across a whole slope, shingles curling at every corner in the same way, blistering, algae streaks, split boots and cracked sealant are all associated with age and exposure rather than a single weather event. Poor original workmanship gets the same treatment: nails driven too high, missing starter course, shingles laid over an uneven deck.
Date of loss and why it matters
Every claim is tied to a specific event on a specific date. Inspectors compare what they see with what the weather actually did at your address on that date. That is why a vague description of the damage hurts you and a precise one helps. If you know the night the wind came through, say so. If two storms passed within a fortnight, say that too, rather than picking one at random.
Reporting promptly matters for the same reason. Damage that sits open through a season collects secondary problems, and the longer the gap, the harder it is for anyone to tie the condition to a single event.
Documentation that genuinely helps
The most useful thing a homeowner can hand over is a clear record, not an argument. That means dated photographs of the damage as soon as it was safe to take them, photographs of the interior if water came in, receipts for any emergency work such as tarping or board-up, and a written note of when you first noticed each problem.
Photographs taken before the storm are worth more than most people realise. If you already had a set of inspection photos from a previous year, they establish the condition of the roof beforehand and remove a whole category of dispute. This is one of the reasons we send homeowners the full photo set from every inspection we do, whether or not any work follows.
How the scope gets measured
Once damage is accepted, the visit turns into a measuring exercise. Roof area is calculated by slope and pitch, and the estimate is built from the components that a real replacement needs: shingles, starter, ridge cap, underlayment, drip edge, flashing, pipe boots, ventilation, disposal and labour.
Items get missed. Not usually out of bad faith, but because a scope written from a tablet on a driveway is easy to trim. Ventilation, valley metal, chimney and wall flashing, and decking that will only be found once the old roof is off are the usual gaps. That is why a contractor scope written independently is worth having on the table.
If the outcome does not match what you were told
Where a contractor and an adjuster disagree, the productive route is specific and documented: identify the exact item, show the photograph, cite the measurement, and ask for it to be reviewed. Most disagreements are about scope rather than about whether damage occurred, and scope disagreements are resolvable with evidence.
Where we fit
We inspect the roof, photograph what we find slope by slope, and write a scope that says what the repair or replacement actually needs. If it helps, we will be on site during the adjuster visit so both sides are looking at the same shingles at the same time. We do not tell homeowners what their claim is worth, and we do not file it for them.
If a storm has just been through, get the roof covered first and worry about the paperwork second. Call the office on (225) 555-0142, or read more on our storm restoration page.
Related reading: how to read your own roof from the ground, which covers the walk-around to do before you call anyone.