Document safely
- Record visible missing, lifted, punctured, or displaced material
- Note tree or debris impact without moving dangerous material
- Photograph interior water symptoms and affected contents
- Keep temporary mitigation and contractor documents
- Contact the insurer promptly when you intend to make a claim
Contractor and insurer roles are different
A contractor can describe roof conditions and estimate repair or replacement work. The insurer evaluates policy terms, cause, scope, depreciation, deductibles, and coverage. Greater Burlington Roofing does not adjust or negotiate insurance claims.
Reject high-pressure claim language
- Guaranteed approval or guaranteed replacement
- A promise to waive or absorb a deductible
- A claim that every nearby property has the same damage
- Pressure to sign before the scope, payment terms, and cancellation rights are understood
- A request to assign broad insurance rights without independent review
Document before anyone touches the roof
Storm claims are decided on evidence, and evidence degrades quickly — debris gets cleared, tarps go up over the damage, wet materials get thrown out. Photographs taken before any of that, with dates, are the cheapest insurance you can give yourself, and they cost one phone and ten minutes.
Keep the two categories of cost apart from the outset. Emergency mitigation to prevent further damage is commonly treated differently from the permanent repair by insurers, and separating them on paper at the time is far easier than reconstructing it later.
- Date, time and weather conditions when the damage occurred
- Interior photographs before cleanup, and exterior photographs from the ground
- Photographs of any temporary protection, before and after installation
- Mitigation invoiced separately from repair
- Retain damaged material until the insurer has had the opportunity to inspect
Who decides what, in a storm claim
Three separate parties make three separate decisions, and confusing them causes most of the friction in a storm repair. Your insurer decides coverage under your policy. A roofing company decides what work it recommends and what it will contract to perform, and prices that work. You decide who to hire and whether to proceed. No roofing company can tell you what your policy covers, and a website certainly cannot.
Storm periods also draw operators from outside the region who follow weather. Some are competent; the pattern to be wary of is pressure — an insistence on signing immediately, a contract contingent on insurance proceeds with a scope defined later, a request for substantial money before materials, or an offer to absorb your deductible. Vermont's registration requirement and its contract content rules apply to storm work exactly as they do to planned work, and a company unwilling to put a defined scope, price provision, dates, and a signed change-order process in writing has told you something useful.
- Verify the contracting entity name against the state registry and the insurance certificate
- Be cautious of any contract that assigns your claim or leaves scope to be set later
- Ask for a written scope you could hand to a second company for comparison
- Understand that a deductible is part of your policy, not a discount to be waived
Service information last reviewed August 16, 2026. Project acceptance, scheduling, and recommendations are confirmed by the roofing company.