The order matters. Document before you repair, check the official storm record before anyone tells you what fell, and do not sign anything on a doorstep — you have specific cancellation rights, and they are shorter than you would like.
Make it safe and stop further water getting in — temporary protection is normally covered, and keep the receipts. Photograph everything, by elevation, with something for scale, before any permanent repair. Look up what was actually measured in your county. Read your declarations page for the deductible and for whether the roof is replacement cost or actual cash value. And do not sign on your doorstep; you have three business days to cancel that, and 72 hours to cancel an insurance-funded contract if the claim is denied.
Safety, then stopping further damage, then documentation — in that order, and documentation before any permanent repair.
Stay off the roof. A roof with fresh hail or wind damage is a bad place to be, and nothing you can see from up there is worth the fall. Watch for downed lines and do not go near them.
Temporary protection — a tarp, boarding a broken window, moving belongings out from under an active leak — is normally covered, and most policies expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further loss. Keep every receipt. What you should not do is have a permanent repair made before the damage is documented, because that removes the evidence the claim rests on.
Photograph each elevation separately so it is obvious which side of the house you are looking at, and put something in frame for scale next to impacts — a coin or a tape measure says more than a wide shot of a wall.
Cover the soft metal: gutters, downspouts, fascia wrap, soffit, vents and the AC condenser fins. Thin aluminium records hail faithfully and is often the clearest proof that hail of a given size reached your property. Photograph interior damage too — ceiling stains, water on sills — with the date.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce recommends keeping a home inventory with photos of each room, and notes that it can significantly speed up the claims process. That is more useful before a storm than after one, but it is worth starting now either way.
Minnesota Department of Commerce: “Take photos of each room, record a video, and create a written inventory. […] A home inventory can significantly speed up the claims process.” Source: MN Dept. of Commerce, Before a Disaster: Your Insurance Checklist
The National Weather Service logs storm reports with a measured hail size, a time, a location and the source of each report. They are public, and they are what an adjuster works from.
This matters because the number in your head may not match the record. Warnings are issued fast on incomplete information and are not always upgraded — in the June 2026 north metro storm the warnings carried a maximum hail size of one inch and 2.25 inches was measured.
We publish the reports for the Minnesota counties we work in, with the source linked on every figure. Check whether your county is there before anybody tells you what fell on it.
Two things, and they take five minutes. Your deductible, which may be a flat figure or a percentage of the dwelling coverage — percentage deductibles are larger than people expect. And whether the roof is covered at replacement cost or actual cash value, because that decides whether depreciation comes off the payment.
The Department of Commerce illustrates the gap with a roof costing $30,000 against a $3,000 deductible and a $20,000 cheque, leaving $13,000 for the homeowner to find. Knowing which side of that you are on changes how you approach the whole claim.
If the policy is not clear, Commerce will help you read it. Their Consumer Service Center is 651-539-1600, they are independent of your carrier, and they sell nothing.
Minnesota Department of Commerce: “It’s going to cost $30,000 to replace my roof · My deductible is $3,000 · My insurer is going to send me a check for $20,000 · I’ve got to come up with $13,000 to make repairs.” Source: MN Dept. of Commerce, Before a Disaster: Your Insurance Checklist
Two separate cancellation rights apply and they are constantly confused. If you sign at your door, you have until midnight of the third business day to cancel, no reason required. If you sign a contract to be paid from insurance proceeds and the claim is then denied, you have 72 hours from that notification to cancel that contract.
Both require written notice but neither requires a particular form, and posted notice counts from the moment it goes in the mailbox. An insurance-funded roofing contract must also arrive with a detachable “Notice of Cancellation” form attached, in bold type — a contract without one is not following the statute, and you can see that without knowing anything about roofs.
Nothing about hail damage gets materially worse because you took two days and got a second opinion. Urgency is information about the seller.
Minn. Stat. § 325G.07: “the buyer has the right to cancel a home solicitation sale until midnight of the third business day after the day on which the home solicitation sale occurs.” And § 326B.811, subd. 1: the right to cancel an insurance-funded contract “within 72 hours after the insured has been notified by the insurer that the claim has been denied.” Source: Minn. Stat. § 325G.07 and § 326B.811
Find out what is actually on the roof first. A claim filed on a guess, and then denied, still sits on your record — and on an older roof carried at actual cash value, the payment may be small enough that filing is not worth it.
What is genuinely time-sensitive is the evidence rather than the paperwork. Hail bruising weathers, and a year of sun and freeze-thaw turns a clear impact into something an adjuster can reasonably call wear.
We will walk the roof, photograph what we find, and give you a written scope that says whether there is a claim there. It is free, it does not oblige you to file anything, and we will tell you if the roof is fine.
This page quotes Minnesota statutes and the adopted Minnesota building code and links to the official text of each so you can read it yourself. It is general information from a licensed contractor, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading your own policy. Statutes and codes are amended; the linked sources are authoritative, this page is not. Last reviewed 2026-10-27.
Straight answers to the questions Minnesota homeowners ask before they call anyone.
One inch is where the Weather Service calls hail severe, and roughly where asphalt shingles start taking real damage — but it is a threshold, not a…
Read the guide →Hail arrives at an angle, so siding damage concentrates on the elevations facing the storm — and an adjuster who inspected the roof may not have…
Read the guide →Gutters are thin aluminium, so they record hail faithfully — which is why adjusters use soft metal to confirm that hail of a given size actually hit…
Read the guide →A Minnesota contractor cannot pay or waive your deductible, cannot interpret your policy for you without a public adjuster license, and must hand you…
Read the guide →Costs, materials, timelines, financing, and how we work — across roofing, siding, windows, and gutters.
Read the FAQ →We’ll walk it, photograph it, and give you a written scope that says exactly what is required and why. Retail or insurance.
We’ll walk the roof, photograph what we find, and hand you a written scope that names the code requirement behind every line. Yours to keep, whoever does the work.
We measure the work by how it holds up — and by what clients say once we're gone.