Storm Damage and Your Roof: What to Do First in New Jersey

Nor'easter season runs from autumn into early spring in New Jersey, and every one of those storms puts a batch of homeowners in the same position: something is wrong with the roof, water may be coming in, and a van with out of state plates is already parked at the end of the street. What you do in the first two days shapes how the insurance claim goes and how much of the repair you end up paying for yourself.

This is the order we tell people to work in.

First, do not let anyone on the roof

Not us, not the contractor who knocked, not your brother in law. The moment somebody walks a storm damaged roof, they add footprints, scuffs and broken granules to whatever the storm did. An adjuster cannot tell the difference, and neither can you. Get the documentation first.

The exception is an active leak. If water is coming into the house, stopping it comes before everything else on this page.

Document it before anything changes

Photographs are the whole ballgame. Take more than you think you need, from the ground, on the day.

• All four elevations of the house from far enough back to see the whole roof
• Close ups of anything in the yard: shingle pieces, torn flashing, downed limbs
• The gutters and the ground below them, where granules collect
• Every interior ceiling or wall stain, with a light on
• Any damaged fence, siding, gutter or window, because it corroborates the storm
• The date and rough time the storm hit, written down

Keep the debris. Do not bag up the shingle pieces and put them out with the trash. Physical evidence that a shingle failed is worth more than a description of one.

Stop the damage, but only temporarily

Nearly every homeowners policy puts a duty on you to prevent further damage once you know about it. That means tarping an opening or catching water in a bucket is not only allowed, it is expected. Keep every receipt, including the tarp and the ladder rental, because reasonable mitigation costs are usually reimbursable.

What you should not do is make permanent repairs before the adjuster has seen it. A properly rebuilt section is a section nobody can assess any more.

Then call your insurer, not a contractor

The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance publishes a plain language summary of what a standard homeowners policy covers, and windstorm and hail are on the list of covered perils. One exclusion catches people out: wind or hail damage to trees and shrubs is generally not covered, even though the tree that fell on the roof caused the loss that is.

Find out which deductible applies before you need to

This is the single most expensive thing homeowners do not know about their own policy. Most people can tell you their standard deductible. Far fewer know they may also have a separate hurricane or named storm deductible, and New Jersey is one of nineteen states plus the District of Columbia where those are permitted.

The difference matters enormously. A standard deductible is usually a flat dollar amount. A hurricane deductible is normally a percentage of the insured value of the home, anywhere from one to fifteen percent, and it is a percentage of what the house is insured for, not of the claim. On a home insured for $600,000, a five percent hurricane deductible is $30,000 before the insurer pays anything.

Wind damage does not always look like damage

The picture everyone has in mind is a bare patch of roof deck with shingles in the neighbour's yard. That is the obvious case. The expensive case is the one that looks fine from the driveway.

• Creased shingles, where wind lifted a tab and it laid back down with a fold across it
• Shingles that are no longer sealed, which lift by hand when they should not
• Bare spots where granules were stripped, leaving the asphalt exposed to sun
• Exposed or backed out nail heads
• Flashing lifted at a chimney, wall or skylight
• Torn or bent drip edge along the eaves and rakes

A creased shingle has a broken fibreglass mat. It will keep water out this month and fail well before the rest of the roof does. A roof can be genuinely compromised without a single shingle missing, which is exactly why the documentation matters.

About the contractor who knocks on your door

After a significant storm, crews arrive from out of state, work an area hard for a few weeks, and leave. Some are competent. The business model is the problem: they are gone before the workmanship warranty means anything, and there is nobody to call in three years.

• Pressure to sign today, or an offer that expires
• An offer to handle or negotiate your insurance claim for you
• An offer to waive, cover or absorb your deductible
• A demand for a large deposit before materials are delivered
• No New Jersey address, and a phone number that is a call centre
• Asking you to sign anything before the adjuster has been out

Anyone selling home improvement work in New Jersey has to be registered as a Home Improvement Contractor with the Division of Consumer Affairs, and the registration number belongs on the contract, the estimate and the truck. You can check a registration yourself. It takes two minutes and it is the cheapest due diligence available.

Be careful about who negotiates your claim

In New Jersey, public adjusters are licensed by the Department of Banking and Insurance. A public adjuster works for you, is bonded, and is regulated. A roofing contractor is not a public adjuster, and a contractor who offers to handle the claim on your behalf is offering something they are generally not licensed to do.

The offer to waive your deductible deserves its own warning. The deductible is your contractual share of the loss. A contractor who says they will absorb it is usually planning to inflate the invoice to the insurer to cover it, and that is insurance fraud with your name on the claim.

If your roof was already old

Worth knowing before you file. Some policies pay replacement cost, which covers a new roof. Others pay actual cash value, which is replacement cost minus depreciation for the age of the roof. On a twenty two year old roof, actual cash value can be a fraction of what the work costs. Neither is a scandal, but it changes the maths, and it is on your declarations page too.

What we do

We inspect the roof, photograph what we find, and give you a written scope of work you can hand to anyone. We will meet the adjuster on the roof and talk through what the repair actually requires. We do not negotiate your claim, we do not touch your deductible, and if we look at your roof and think the damage is age rather than the storm, we will tell you that, because you are going to find out eventually and it may as well be from us.

We are based in New Jersey and we work across the state. If a storm comes through and you want somebody to look before you decide anything, call us at 908-880-2500.

Sources

• NJ Department of Banking and Insurance, Homeowners Insurance policy summary
• National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Hurricane Deductibles
• NJ Department of Banking and Insurance, Insurance Licensing
• NJ Division of Consumer Affairs, Home Improvement Contractor registration