What to Do If You Have Roof Storm Damage: Safety, Claims & Repair Checklist

The wind has dropped, and you are standing in the yard looking up at your roof. What you do over the next few hours shapes your safety and your insurance claim, and the order in which you work matters as much as the speed.

Here is the short version. Stay off the roof and check for gas and electrical hazards first. Photograph everything from the ground and from inside the attic ahead of any cleanup. Cover open sections with a properly secured tarp, since Florida policies require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage.

Report the claim to your insurer, keeping in mind that Florida allows one year from the date of loss for a new claim and 18 months for a supplemental claim. Then have a licensed roofer inspect the property and stand with you when the adjuster arrives.

Each step is covered in detail below, along with the Florida rules that decide what your claim is worth and whether your roof qualifies for a repair. If you need help now, our storm damage roof repair team covers Naples and the surrounding communities.

The First Hour, In Order

Work through these in sequence. The order matters more than the speed.

1. Check for gas. Walk through the house and smell for anything unusual near appliances and along walls. If you notice a gas odor, leave the lights and switches alone, exit the house, leave the door open, and call 911 from outside.
2. Look for downed lines. Treat every wire on the ground as live, including cable and phone lines that may be touching a power line further along the run.
3. Shut power to rooms with active drips. A light fixture filling with water is an electrical hazard. Turn off the breaker for that room and leave the switch alone.
4. Stay on the ground. A storm-damaged roof can have decking that looks intact and gives way underfoot. Binoculars or a phone camera at full zoom will show you what you need.
5. Walk the perimeter. Note sagging rooflines, missing sections, debris impact, and tiles or shingles in the yard.
6. Check the attic in daylight. Sunlight through the decking means an opening. Dark streaks, wet insulation, and a musty smell mean water is already inside.

With those six done, book a free inspection so an assessment is underway while your documentation is fresh.

How to Document Damage So an Adjuster Cannot Dispute It

Photographs win claims when they answer the questions an adjuster must ask. Take them ahead of any cleanup, tarping, or debris removal.

• Shoot in three ranges on every slope. A wide shot of the elevation, a mid shot placing the damage in context, and close-ups of individual tiles, shingles, or flashing. Interior shots cover ceiling stains, wet insulation, and damaged contents.
• Photograph what the attic showed you. Interior water evidence connects roof damage to interior loss, a separate line in your claim.
• Pull the official storm record. Save the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration record for your area. It confirms the storm reached your address, and it fixes the date your filing deadlines run from.

• Keep every receipt. Tarps, fasteners, plywood, fans, dehumidifiers, and emergency labor are generally reimbursable as mitigation costs.
• Log your calls. Record the date, time, contact name, and main takeaways for every call with your insurer.

A professional roof inspection adds slope-by-slope photos and a written report the adjuster has to address.

Emergency Tarping and Your Duty to Mitigate

Most property policies ask you to take reasonable steps to prevent additional damage once you know about a covered loss, and your policy language spells out what that means. Water entering through an uncovered opening can become a point of dispute, so tarping protects your claim along with your ceilings.

A tarp that holds through the next afternoon storm uses heavy material carried well past the damage on every side and fastened into framing, with the upper edge tucked under the ridge so water sheds over the top. Sandbags and loose weights come off in the first gust.

Openings on a tile roof need extra care, since walking a damaged tile field creates more breakage. This is the point where a professional tarp saves money.

Legrand’s Roofing & Construction LLC provides emergency tarping throughout our service areas, and we confirm any permitting your municipality requires as part of the work.

What Storm Damage Looks Like on a Tile Roof

Naples is a tile market, and tile fails differently from asphalt.

• Cracked and slipped tiles. Flying limbs and large hail crack tile on impact. Wind lifts and shifts individual pieces without removing them, so a slipped tile can sit almost in position while leaving the course beside it exposed.
• Exposed underlayment. Tile sheds most water, and the underlayment beneath it is the actual waterproof layer. Once a tile breaks, that underlayment takes direct sun and direct rain. Southwest Florida wet season conditions degrade an exposed membrane quickly, which turns a single broken tile into a decking problem in a single season.
• Broken ridge and hip tiles. Mortar-set ridge caps take wind uplift first and show from the ground.
• Foot traffic damage. Tile breaks under weight. Damage that appears after an inspection may have come from the inspection.

Concrete and clay tiles suit Naples architecture and perform well against wind, and the vulnerability is impact. Matching a discontinued profile can shape the scope of a repair, so identify yours early.

Our tile roof repair and tile roof replacement pages cover how each is approached. Shingle, metal, and flat systems each have their own failure patterns, covered on our roof repair page.

Filing Your Claim in Florida

Florida shortened these windows, and older guidance still circulating gives the wrong numbers.

Under Florida Statute 627.70132, a claim or reopened claim is barred unless you give notice within one year after the date of loss.

The window for a supplemental claim is 18 months. The date of loss runs from landfall or NOAA verification, so the clock starts on the storm date, often earlier than the day you noticed damage.

Hidden damage found months later can already be close to its deadline, which is why you report as soon as you suspect a loss.

What Your Hurricane Deductible Really Costs

Your hurricane deductible works differently from your standard deductible, and the gap is measured in tens of thousands of dollars.

Florida Statute 627.701(3)(a) requires insurers to offer hurricane deductible options of $500, 2%, 5%, or 10% of the policy dwelling limits. On a home insured at $400,000, those percentages come to $8,000, $20,000, and $40,000. Your policy lists the figure as a dollar amount on the declarations page even when you selected a percentage.

Two details change the math. Homes at higher insured limits get different tiers, so a property above $1 million may be offered 3%, 5%, and 10%. And the hurricane deductible applies on a calendar-year basis with the same insurer, so a second hurricane in the same year carries the greater of your unused hurricane deductible balance or your all-other-perils deductible.

One more point is worth knowing. A roof deductible cannot be applied to a roof loss resulting from a hurricane.

File the claim even when the repair looks smaller than your deductible. Filing creates the record of credit that applies to a second storm in the same year, and hidden damage frequently surfaces once repairs begin.

What the Insurer Owes You, and When

Reporting starts obligations on your carrier’s side. Florida sets statutory windows for acknowledging your notice of loss, inspecting the property, and deciding to pay or deny. Ask your adjuster to confirm those dates in writing, and note them alongside your own.

Two coverage questions are worth resolving in the same conversation. The first is whether your roof is covered at replacement cost or actual cash value, since actual cash value settles at a depreciated figure tied to roof age.

Ask as well about ordinance or law coverage, which pays the difference when current building code requires upgrades during the repair. A wind mitigation inspection after repairs earns insurance credits on future premiums.

Repair or Replace, and What the 25% Rule Means Now

The Florida Building Code has long required that when more than 25% of a roof area or roof section is repaired, replaced, or recovered within 12 months, the entire roofing system or section must conform to current code.

Senate Bill 4-D added an exception many homeowners have yet to hear about. Florida Statute 553.844(5) provides that where a roofing system or roof section was built, repaired, or replaced in compliance with the 2007 Florida Building Code or any subsequent edition, and 25% or more of it is being repaired, replaced, or recovered, only the repaired, replaced, or recovered portion must meet the code in effect. The rest of the roof stays as it is.

The statute also bars local governments from adopting an ordinance that amends this exception, so the same rule applies across every municipality in Southwest Florida.

Permit history decides whether the exception covers you, so pull the records for your roof and confirm the code edition it was built to.

Where the exception applies, a targeted roof repair restores the system at a fraction of the cost. Where damage is widespread, decking is saturated, or the roof is near the end of its service life, roof replacement is the sounder path.

Choosing a Contractor

You can learn most of what matters about a roofing company by:

1. Verifying the license. Look up the company with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation ahead of signing anything. The department publishes a walkthrough on how to verify a license by name or number.
2. Asking for the insurance certificate. General liability and workers’ compensation, issued directly by the insurer.
3. Checking that they are local. A physical address in Southwest Florida and recent projects they can name. Our project gallery and customer reviews show ours.
4. Asking them to attend the adjuster inspection. Adjusters carry heavy caseloads after a regional storm, and a second set of trained eyes keeps the scope complete.

We’re Here for Our Neighbors: Get Your Free Post-Storm Assessment Today!

Legrand’s Roofing & Construction LLC works across Naples, Marco Island, and communities throughout Southwest Florida, with tile, shingle, metal, and flat roofing systems built for High-Velocity Hurricane Zone requirements.

Schedule a free inspection, and we will document the damage, explain your repair and replacement options, and meet your adjuster on site. Ahead of the next storm, our guide to pre-storm roof inspections covers what to check while conditions are calm.