The exact photos to take, the notes to keep, and how to inspect your own property safely from the ground — evidence that holds up months later in a claim.
Claims are won and lost on documentation. An adjuster may not visit for weeks; by then the hail has melted, the neighborhood is repaired, and memory has faded. What survives is what you recorded. The good news: a phone camera and thirty minutes is all it takes.
The shot list
Hailstones next to a coin, ruler, or tape measure — on the ground where they fell, and a few in a freezer bag for later.
All four sides of the house, wide, showing the roofline.
Every window screen (tears and dents show hail direction and size).
Gutters and downspouts, close up — dents in soft metal are the classic hail signature.
AC unit fins, mailbox, garage door, metal fencing.
Cars that were outside: roof, hood, trunk lid, from a low angle in raking light.
From the ground only: any visible roof damage — missing shingles, exposed black substrate, damaged vents or flashing. Zoom, don’t climb.
Stay off the roof: Ground-level photos plus a professional inspection is the complete answer. Post-storm roofs are slick with loose granules, and hail damage assessment genuinely requires trained eyes — homeowners on ladders after storms is how ERs stay busy.
The written record
Date and time hail fell, how long it lasted, and the biggest stone size you saw or measured.
Your SkyVision alert, if you got one — it independently timestamps the event with an estimated size at your address.
A running log of every storm-related conversation from now on: who, when, what was said. Insurers keep one; you should too. (Our Claim Documentation Worksheet is built for this.)
Receipts for tarps, boards, emergency work — typically reimbursable, and only if you kept them.
Keep it in one place
Make one folder — cloud storage is best — named with the storm date. Photos, notes, receipts, inspection reports, and later every claim document goes in it. When someone asks for evidence in month three, you’ll produce it in minutes.