Start here, before anyone touches the roof.

Photograph what you can see from the ground with today's date. Keep anything the storm knocked loose — a piece of shingle in the yard is evidence. Do not let anyone begin a repair, and do not sign an authorisation that assigns your claim to somebody else.

The first documented inspection becomes the baseline the whole claim is argued against. A roof that has already been worked on is a roof nobody can assess.

Do I call my insurance or a roofer first after hail?

Either is allowed, and both start a clock you cannot stop.

Calling your insurer opens the claim, which is generally good: filing a proof of loss pauses the limitation period while the carrier reviews (215 ILCS 5/143.1). It also sends their adjuster, whose assessment becomes the settlement unless somebody documents a different one.

Calling a contractor gets you an opinion on the roof, not a claim. Be careful what you sign: some authorisations hand over the right to deal with your carrier directly, which is a bigger decision than it looks on the page.

Either way, get the damage independently documented before the record is set. That is the call to make first.

How do I know if hail damaged my roof?

Look at the metal, not the shingles. You can do this yourself today, from the ground.

Hail marks soft metal before anything shows on a covering. Check gutters and downspouts, the metal wraps around windows, vents and flashing, and the fins on your air conditioning condenser. Dents there are not wear — metal does not weather into that shape.

Then look at your neighbours. Hail falls in swaths rather than on single houses, so homes nearby going under scaffolding after the same storm is the strongest free signal you will get. If you find dented metal or a re-roofing street, there is something on your roof to inspect.

What the inspection is for

The dispute in a hail claim is almost never about whether you are covered. It is about how much damage there is — and that number depends entirely on how carefully somebody looked.

Damage to a roof is frequently invisible from the ground and difficult to assess from a driveway. The carrier sends one adjuster, who forms one opinion on one visit, and that opinion becomes the settlement unless somebody documents a different one.

Call us if: the estimate came in just under your deductible so you collect nothing; the carrier approved a repair where neighbours with the same roof age and the same storm are getting full replacements; the scope leaves out work the job genuinely requires; or the claim was denied on an inspection that took ten minutes from the ground.

How long you actually have

Illinois sets no statutory deadline for filing a property insurance claim. The real limit is written into your own policy — the suit limitation clause, which in most Illinois property policies gives you about one year from the date of loss. Your policy controls, so read yours rather than trusting a number on a website, including this one.

One thing shifts that clock. Under 215 ILCS 5/143.1, the limitation period is suspended from the date you submit a proof of loss until the carrier formally denies the claim. Time spent waiting on the insurer's decision is generally not time spent burning your window.

So filing early does more than start the repair. It also stops the clock while the claim is under review — which is exactly backwards from how most people assume it works.

If you are near the one-year mark

The closer you get to the limitation date, the fewer options remain. A policyholder who waited eleven months is in a materially weaker position than one who called at month three.

Physical evidence degrades on the same schedule. Soft metal dents oxidise, granule loss gets attributed to age, and repairs done in the meantime destroy the proof. If a storm hit your area months ago and you have done nothing, call now.

A denial is not the end

Denials are frequently scope decisions wearing different clothes: the inspector did not find damage, so there is nothing to cover. A denial based on an assessment that missed damage can be revisited once somebody documents what was missed.

There is also the tolling rule above. If you filed a proof of loss and the carrier took months to deny it, that period generally did not count against your limitation window — so a claim that looks expired on the calendar often is not.