A hailstorm blows through Gwinnett County on a Tuesday afternoon. By Wednesday morning, you have granules in your gutters, a dent in every downspout, and three different roofing companies knocking on your front door. Your neighbor already filed a claim. Your insurance company's automated system is telling you to "document all damage and await adjuster assignment." And you're standing in your driveway wondering what to actually do first.
This guide answers that question. It walks through the entire Georgia roof insurance claim process in the order that produces the best outcomes — not the order your insurance company prefers, and not the order that benefits a contractor looking for a quick signature. The order that protects you.
You can follow these seven steps yourself. Or you can call 1Source at (404) 277-1377 and we handle every single one of them for you. We've walked hundreds of metro Atlanta homeowners through this process — in Alpharetta, Buckhead, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Marietta, and Johns Creek — and the pattern is always the same. Homeowners who know the process get better results. Homeowners who have a contractor managing the process get the best results.
Here is how it works, start to finish.
Do not climb on your roof. Every year, Georgia emergency rooms treat homeowners who fell off a roof trying to assess storm damage. A residential roof pitch of 6/12 or steeper becomes a fall hazard the moment it's wet, covered in granule debris, or has damaged shingles that shift underfoot. You cannot see hail damage from on top of the roof anyway — it's visible at a low angle, not from directly above. Stay on the ground. Let a licensed contractor with fall protection equipment perform the up-close inspection. Your ground-level photos are more than enough to start the claim.
Step 1: Document Damage From the Ground
Before anyone touches your roof — before a tarp goes on, before a contractor visits, before you call your insurance company — grab your phone and take photographs. These photos are your starting evidence. They establish the condition of your property on the day of the storm event, before any repairs or modifications alter the scene.
What to Photograph
- Every side of your roof from the ground. Wide-angle shots that show the full roof plane, plus close-ups of visible damage — missing shingles, exposed underlayment, shingle tabs that lifted and didn't reseal.
- Gutters and downspouts. Look for dents (hail impact), granule buildup (shingle surface damage), and separated joints from wind stress.
- Soft metals around the house. AC condenser fins, aluminum porch railings, mailbox tops, window screens, garage door panels. Hail marks on soft metal are indisputable evidence of hail size and density. Adjusters use these marks to calibrate the severity of the event.
- Fallen shingles or debris. If pieces of your roof are in the yard, photograph them where they landed before picking them up.
- Interior evidence. Water stains on ceilings, wet attic insulation, active dripping. Photograph these with timestamps on.
- Neighbor damage and fallen trees. These shots establish that the storm event was real and widespread — useful if the insurer questions whether the damage was pre-existing.
When to Photograph
Same day as the storm if possible, next morning at latest. The more time that passes, the easier it becomes for an adjuster to attribute damage to "wear and tear" rather than the specific storm event. Take the photos before any cleanup. Before the tree service comes. Before the gutter company shows up. Raw, unaltered, timestamped.
What These Photos Are — and What They Are Not
Your ground-level photos are preliminary evidence. They are not a roof inspection. You cannot see hail bruising from the ground. You cannot see cracked shingle mats or broken seal strips from forty feet away. What you can see — and what matters at this stage — is the general condition of your property on the date of loss. The real damage assessment comes from a contractor's hands-on inspection, which is Step 2.
Step 2: Call a Roofing Contractor Before Your Insurance Company
This is the step most homeowners get backwards, and it's the one that matters most.
The natural instinct after storm damage is to call your insurance company first. That feels like the responsible thing to do. But here is what happens when you do that: the insurer assigns an adjuster, the adjuster shows up in a few days, and now you're standing on your lawn watching a stranger evaluate damage you haven't had independently assessed. You have no baseline. You have no professional opinion on what's actually wrong with your roof. You have no documentation beyond your phone photos. When the adjuster writes an estimate, you have no way to know if it's accurate, low, or missing items — because you have nothing to compare it to.
Flip the order. Call a roofing contractor first.
What a Proper Pre-Claim Contractor Inspection Produces
- A full damage assessment. A contractor gets on the roof with safety equipment and inspects every plane, every valley, every penetration. They document hail impact density per test square (a 10-by-10-foot area), wind damage patterns, and the condition of flashing, vents, pipe boots, ridge cap, and underlayment.
- High-resolution photographs. Not phone shots from the ground — close-up images of individual hail strikes, cracked shingle mats, lifted tabs, and damaged components. These photos become part of your claim file.
- A measured scope of work. Roof plane dimensions, ridge and hip linear footage, valley measurements, penetration counts, and material quantities. This scope is what you compare the adjuster's estimate against.
- Weather data for your address. National Weather Service storm reports for your county on the date of the event. This independent corroboration is harder for an insurer to dispute than your recollection of "it hailed pretty bad."
With this documentation in hand, you know exactly what you're dealing with before you pick up the phone to call your insurer. You file the claim with specific, professional information. And when the adjuster arrives, your contractor can be there to walk the roof with them — which brings us to Step 4.
1Source performs this pre-claim inspection at no charge. No obligation, no contract required at this stage. We produce the full documentation package described above and walk you through the findings before you file. If the damage doesn't warrant a claim — maybe it's below your deductible threshold, or the roof was already near end-of-life — we tell you that directly. We'd rather earn your trust with honesty than push you into a claim that doesn't make financial sense. Call (404) 277-1377 to schedule.
Step 3: File the Claim
Now you call your insurance company. You've documented the damage from the ground. You've had a professional inspection. You know the scope. It's time to file.
What to Have Ready
- Your policy number (on your declarations page)
- The date of loss — the date the storm occurred, not the date you noticed damage
- A brief description of the damage: "Hail and wind damage to roofing system, gutters, and soft metals, observed following the [date] storm event"
- Your contractor's name and contact information
How to File
Call the main claims line or file through your insurer's online portal. Do not go through your local agent — the agent's job is to sell policies, not process claims. Filing directly with the claims department creates an immediate record and starts the regulatory clock. Under Georgia law (O.C.G.A. § 33-24-5), your insurer must acknowledge the claim within 15 days and make a decision within 15 business days of receiving all required documentation.
You'll receive a claim number. Write it down. Use it in every subsequent conversation, email, and letter. Keep a log of every call: date, time, representative name, and what was discussed. This log becomes critical if the claim is delayed or disputed.
What NOT to Say
- Don't estimate dollar amounts. You don't know the final cost yet, and any number you volunteer can be used to anchor the settlement lower.
- Don't agree to a settlement over the phone. The initial offer is almost always based on incomplete information.
- Don't sign anything beyond the initial notice of loss form. Settlement releases, direction-to-pay authorizations, and satisfaction letters all come later — after the full scope is documented and supplements are processed.
- Don't say "I think the damage is minor" or "It's probably just a few shingles." Let the inspection speak for itself. Understating damage at the filing stage gives the insurer a recorded reason to low-ball the estimate.
Step 4: The Adjuster Visit
Within a few days to two weeks of filing, your insurer assigns a field adjuster. This person comes to your property, gets on the roof, and produces an estimate — the document that determines your initial payout. The visit typically takes one to three hours, depending on roof complexity and the adjuster's workload.
Who the Adjuster Works For
The adjuster is either a staff employee of your insurance company or an independent adjuster hired by the insurer under contract. Either way, the adjuster's client is the insurance company, not you. This is not an accusation of bad faith — many adjusters do excellent, thorough work. But the structural incentive is real: the adjuster produces the estimate that determines what the insurer pays. Having your own expert present is the counterbalance.
Why Your Contractor Must Be Present
This is the highest-value moment in the entire claims process. When your contractor walks the roof alongside the adjuster, three things happen that cannot happen any other way:
- Missed damage gets caught in real time. An adjuster working alone might spend 30 to 45 minutes on a roof. With a contractor pointing out specific impact areas, damaged flashing, and compromised components, nothing gets overlooked because nothing was looked at.
- Damage attribution stays honest. An inexperienced adjuster might call hail bruising "blistering" (a manufacturing defect) or attribute wind-lifted shingles to "improper installation." Your contractor can demonstrate the difference on the spot, with the shingle in hand.
- The scope gets documented correctly the first time. Supplement disputes are much harder to win than getting the item included in the original estimate. Your contractor's presence at the adjuster visit reduces the need for supplements by 40% to 60% in our experience.
1Source attends every adjuster inspection for our customers. We coordinate the scheduling directly with the insurance company so the adjuster, our site supervisor, and the homeowner are all present at the same time. This is not a premium service or an upsell — it is how we run every claim.
What the Adjuster Examines
- Hail spatter on soft metals. Dents on gutters, aluminum vents, and AC condenser fins establish hail size and coverage density. These marks are objective — they cannot be attributed to wear.
- Shingle damage patterns. Hail leaves a bruise: a depression in the shingle mat where the asphalt cracked and granules displaced. Wind lifts shingles from the bottom edge, breaking the self-seal strip. The adjuster maps the coverage and determines if it exceeds the functional damage threshold.
- Collateral damage. Pipe boots, ridge vents, drip edge, valley flashing, skylights. Every rooftop component that was exposed to the same storm is part of the claim.