Filing Your Claim and Choosing the Right Contractor

Most homeowners have never filed a hail or wind claim, and the number one reason they hesitate is the fear that their rates will go up. The truth is more nuanced than yes or no.

Will filing raise my rates?

Hail and wind are catastrophic, no-fault acts of God. Compare that to crashing your car into a pole, which is an at-fault event that marks you as a greater risk, so the carrier can and will raise your rate. In Wisconsin, a carrier generally cannot single you out to raise your rate just because you filed a homeowners claim for a weather event. Here is the catch: if your home got hit, most of your neighbors did too, and the carrier is allowed to raise rates across an entire zip code based on the volume of claims. They cannot single you out, but they can raise the whole area.

So put plainly: after a catastrophic storm, your rates are likely going up whether you file or not. That is exactly why it is in your interest to file if you have damage. Otherwise you are just subsidizing every neighbor who gets a new roof through a claim while you get left out.

Confirming you actually have damage

How do you know if your roof, siding, gutters, or windows took real damage worth a claim? This is where a qualified local contractor matters. Start online and look for local roofing contractors who list storm restoration as a service on their website and their Google profile. Not every exterior contractor wants this work. In fact, several of the bigger Milwaukee-metro companies state plainly that they do not do storm claims, because it takes staff who know how to navigate the process. Find a few that do, call them, and tell them you think you have hail or wind damage and want an inspection.

What a real inspection looks like

The first sign of a good contractor is a thorough inspection: they get on your roof, walk the entire property, and most importantly, photo-document everything they find. If someone spends five minutes, does a quick once-over, and says "yep, you've got a claim, let's file," that is not your guy. You want the one who treats your home like his own, finds everything, and then explains how the process will go if you decide to file. Assuming they have solid photo evidence of damage that warrants a claim, the next step is to file. At Northcraft, we help facilitate that, because the carrier's intake agent will sometimes ask questions you are not sure how to answer, and having representation is where your contractor's real work begins.

A red flag you cannot ignore: eating the deductible

Quality, reputable contractors will not offer to eat your deductible. There is a lot that has to happen behind the scenes to pull that off, some of which means falsifying documentation, and a contractor eating your deductible is, by definition, insurance fraud. Reputable contractors earn your business through reputation, straight advice, great communication, and their work, not by breaking the law. A contractor who has to offer to eat your deductible is going to cut corners somewhere else, because they have to make that money back. Do you want a great roof and a great experience, or a Walmart roof? Pay your deductible.

The five things a good storm contractor has

There is a lot that goes into picking a contractor, and I cover it in depth in a separate post, but the big ones are:

1. Locally owned and operated
2. A real brick-and-mortar location (not a guy working out of his garage)
3. At least $2M in general liability insurance
4. A Wisconsin Dwelling Contractor license
5. Good online reviews

On top of that, ask whether their crews install to the manufacturer's spec, because that is what keeps your warranty valid. If your contractor checks those boxes, you are probably in good hands.

Next, in Part 3, we get into how your insurance company actually operates, and the moves they make that sound helpful but are not.