What actually happens, from the knock to the new roof

Who actually decides what you get

Worth settling first, because it explains the whole shape of the process. Your insurance company decides what is approved and what is paid. The roofer does the work that was approved.

The way we put it to homeowners: your carrier is the doctor and we are the pharmacy. They write the prescription. We fill it. When people ask us to quote a roof that is already an insurance job, they are asking the pharmacy to diagnose them.

That is also why a contractor who promises you an outcome from the carrier before an adjuster has been out is promising something they have no ability to deliver.

Step one and two: the inspection, and the call

Someone gets on the roof. A proper inspection is not a glance from the driveway: it is the whole property photographed and documented, roof, gutters, screens, fencing, the lot, and it takes about half an hour. Then you get shown what was found, on a phone, right there.

If there is enough to file on, the next step happens immediately rather than being left with you as homework. You and the contractor call your carrier together. They verify your identity with you, then take a description of the damage from the person who just photographed it.

This is the step people most often try to do alone, and it is the one where doing it alone costs the most. A claim described in general terms gets a different response than a claim described by someone who can say which slopes, what size, and what else on the property was hit.

Step three: the adjuster comes out, and you do not need to be there

Usually within about twenty-four hours you will hear from your carrier with an appointment, often a few days out. You pass the time and date to your contractor.

Your contractor turns up early and meets the adjuster at the property. They walk the fence, the back yard and the roof together. It takes about an hour. You can be at work for all of it.

This meeting matters more than any other step, and it is the one that decides a lot of denials. An adjuster works from what is documented in front of them. Damage nobody walks them to is damage that does not make it into the file, and what is not in the file does not get paid for. It is also the single most common thing missing from a claim that came back denied.

When the adjuster leaves, you get a call about how it went.

Step four: the estimate arrives, and this is where people stall

Within a day or so your carrier emails you an estimate and tells you what they are paying. Sometimes it goes to the contractor instead. It varies by carrier and it is not a signal about anything.

Two things about that email catch people out, and between them they account for most of the homeowners who go quiet at this point.

The first is that the total is bigger than a roof, because it is not just a roof: gutters, downspouts, window screens and often fencing are separate lines on it. The second is that the payment is smaller than the total, because part of it is depreciation the carrier holds back until the work is finished. Neither is a problem and neither means you have been shorted.

What you do here is send the estimate to your contractor. They read it by trade and tell you what it covers, what your deductible is, and what the options are.

Step five: the money, and your mortgage company

Your carrier mails a check, which typically takes a couple of weeks. If you have a mortgage, your lender is very often named on it as well, which means it cannot simply be deposited.

In that case the check goes to your mortgage company to be endorsed, comes back, gets deposited, and then has to clear. This is normal, it is not an obstacle, and it is the single biggest reason the gap between approval and install day is measured in weeks rather than days. Knowing it is coming makes it much less alarming.

Once the funds clear, you tell your contractor and the job gets scheduled.

Step six and seven: sitting down, then install day

Before anything is ordered there is a proper conversation: the components going on your roof, your deductible, shingle color, anything your HOA requires, and what the difference is if you want all the approved trades done rather than only the roof.

That is also when to raise anything about your property. A tear-off shakes the whole house, so it is the moment to say that there is a flower bed to protect, a dog in the yard, kids at home, or a heavy picture that should come off the wall. A crew that has done this properly asks these questions before you think to.

Materials are delivered to your address the day before, and can be dropped where you want them if the driveway matters.

Then the roof goes on. Most single-family reroofs finish in one day. We prep every homeowner for one to three, because heat slows a crew down and it is better to be told three and finish in one than the reverse.

Step eight: the part after the roof

Once the work is complete, the documentation goes back to your carrier and the depreciation they held back is released. That is the second payment, and it is what makes the arithmetic work out.

This is why finishing the claim properly matters as much as finishing the roof, and why leaving a job half-documented costs a homeowner real money that was sitting there for them.