When a hail core rolls through North Texas, the first 24 hours decide how your insurance claim plays out — and how exposed your home is to the next round of weather. We've worked thousands of storm calls across Denton, Tarrant, Collin, Dallas, Parker, and Wise counties, and the homeowners who do well after a storm almost always do the same handful of things in the same order.
This is the checklist we give our own neighbors. None of it requires getting on the roof. None of it requires signing anything in your driveway. Work through it in order, and you'll be ahead of 90% of the homes on your street.
Hour 0–1: Make the house safe before you do anything else
Before you think about insurance, walk the perimeter and look for the obvious safety issues first: downed power lines, broken glass, fallen limbs, exposed nails in the yard. If you see a live line, stay 35 feet back and call your utility — not 911 unless someone is hurt.
Inside the house, check ceilings on the top floor and inside closets for wet drywall, brown rings, or active drips. A hailstorm rarely opens a roof on its own, but accompanying straight-line wind can lift shingles or tear flashing in seconds. If you see active water, put a bucket down, move electronics, and shut off power to that circuit at the breaker.
If water is coming through fast and you can safely reach the attic, lay a tarp or plastic sheet under the leak to channel water to a single point you can catch. Do not climb onto the roof yourself, in the dark, in wet conditions, ever.
Hour 1–4: Document everything from the ground
Insurance adjusters read photos before they read your statement. The more dated, time-stamped evidence you have, the harder it is for a carrier to argue your damage was pre-existing. Walk your property with your phone and capture:
- Wide shots of every elevation of the house (front, back, both sides)
- Close-ups of any visible dents in gutters, downspouts, gutter aprons, and metal vents
- Window screens — hail almost always punches obvious holes
- AC condenser fins (the soft aluminum fins bend at the lightest hail)
- Mailbox, grill lids, patio furniture, vehicles — anything metal in the open
- Splatter marks on the back of the house and on painted surfaces
- Ground-level shots of accumulated hail with a coin or hand for scale
Save the local radar loop too. Most weather apps let you screenshot the storm at the moment it passed your address. That single image stops a lot of arguments later.
Hour 4–24: Get a real inspection — but choose carefully
Within hours of a major hail event, every North Texas neighborhood gets blanketed by storm chasers — out-of-state crews working door-to-door with no local address, and no plan to be here when a warranty claim comes due two years later.
Schedule a free inspection with a local, insured contractor instead. A real estimator will document hail strikes per square (a 10×10 ft section of roof), photograph the soft metals, check vents and flashing, and give you a written report you can hand to your adjuster. We do this every day across DFW — see our storm damage response page for what a real inspection looks like.
Three rules for choosing who steps on your roof:
- Local address you can drive to. Not a PO box. Not a truck wrap.
- A current Certificate of Insurance showing general liability coverage. Texas does not issue a state roofing license, so ask for the COI.
- Check their Google reviews. Recent, local, and consistent.
- No contracts signed before your insurance company has seen the damage. Period.
Hour 12–24: File the claim — but stage it correctly
Most carriers want the claim opened within a reasonable time of the storm. That doesn't mean five minutes after the last hailstone. The smarter order is: safety first, document, get an independent inspection report, then call your carrier with real information in hand.
When you call, ask for a claim number, the adjuster's name and direct phone, and the deadline for submitting supplemental documentation. Take notes. Carriers route storm calls through a national queue, and you may not get the same person twice — your notes become the continuity.
Want to skip the back-and-forth? We handle the entire insurance conversation for thousands of North Texas homeowners every year, including the engineer reports if a claim gets denied. Walk through it on our insurance claims page.
What to avoid in the first 24 hours
- Signing an Assignment of Benefits (AOB) at the door. You're handing your claim — and sometimes your legal rights — to a stranger.
- Paying a deposit to a contractor before the insurance company has approved the claim.
- Climbing on the roof to look around. Wet asphalt is the most dangerous surface in residential construction.
- Letting an out-of-area crew tarp your roof for a fee. An insured local contractor will do emergency tarping at no charge in most cases.
- Throwing away damaged shingles, screens, or gutter sections before they've been photographed.
Veteran-owned, North Texas-based, here when you need us
DKG Roofing is a veteran-owned and operated contractor based in Aledo, TX, serving North Texas. We've been the storm-response crew for DFW homeowners. After a hail event, we'll come out the same day in most cases, document the damage, file the supplements your carrier missed, and stand behind the work in writing.
If a storm just hit your neighborhood, request your free roof inspection or call our office. We'll be there before the chasers stop knocking.
Emergency tarping and next steps
If your roof is leaking right now or you just spotted hail damage from the ground, do not wait on the insurance call to act. Our storm damage response page walks through the full North Texas emergency response — free same-day inspection, emergency tarping to stop active leaks, written damage documentation for your adjuster, and the insurance claim handled end to end.
DKG Roofing is veteran-owned and based in Aledo, TX, serving North Texas. Call (940) 497-2833 for emergency tarping, or request a free inspection online and an estimator will reach out the same day.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to file a hail damage claim in Texas?
You generally have one year from the date of the storm to file a hail damage claim in Texas, though some policies allow longer. The smart move is to file within a few days. Step one: photograph the damage from the ground. Step two: get a free roof inspection from a local insured contractor. Step three: open the claim with your inspection report in hand. Waiting weeks gives the insurance company room to argue the damage came from a different storm.
Will filing a hail claim raise my insurance premium?
No, a single hail claim usually will not raise your individual premium because hail is a weather event, not a driver-fault claim. Texas-wide rates can rise after major storm seasons, but that happens whether or not you personally file. If your roof has real hail damage, file the claim — the cost of an unrepaired roof leak is far higher than any small rate change at renewal.
Do I need to be home for a free roof inspection?
No, you do not need to be home for the actual roof inspection — we only need access to the outside of the house. We do recommend being available by phone so we can call you with our findings before we leave. When we're handling your insurance claim, we'll document damage with photos you can hand directly to your adjuster.
What if I can't see any hail damage from the ground?
That is normal and does not mean your roof is fine. Asphalt shingle hail bruising is almost never visible from the ground. Look instead for these ground-level clues: dents in your gutters or downspouts, splatter marks on painted surfaces, bent fins on your outdoor AC unit, and torn window screens. If you see two or more of those, schedule a free roof inspection — there is almost certainly matching damage on the roof above.
Can DKG tarp my roof tonight if it is actively leaking?
Yes. We provide emergency roof tarping for North Texas homeowners as part of our storm response, often the same day you call. Step one: put a bucket under the leak and move electronics. Step two: shut off the breaker for any affected circuit. Step three: call us and we will dispatch a crew as soon as conditions are safe. Tarping prevents secondary water damage while your insurance claim is opened.