Hail Storm After Life

Travis

Hey everyone. I live in Indianapolis, got hit with big hailstorm
(300-400,000 claims in Indy) last April 2006. Tons of work for 12 straight months(5 years worth of work done in 1 year), but now it has finally dried up for all local guys(happy & releived , but getting to be worrisome a little). How long does it usually take to get back to normal on a storm this big? 1-3 years?

roofwiz74

be plenty of work,start advertising for repairs.I worked in NW indiana thru all the the big hail storm we had 5-6 yrs ago.spent many,many,many days fixing cheap pipe flashings,improperly installed flashings,no flashings,anything you can think of that will leak it gets done.
the storms bring out every butt nugget with a hammer,"I can roof just nail them on".hell yeah,I'll burn them up repairing it.
There is still plenty of res. work going on down that way.Couple folks I know are waiting for me to be able to travel in a month or so and I've got 20 some odd homes to do.lots of work just gotta go find it.or make it easy for them to find you.
folks that know me,that's what they think when they have a roof problem..."call that Donn fella,he's a roofer".That is unless I did the roof then they don't have problems.

__________________
You have ONE advantage over me.....you can kiss my butt and I can't!!

thom

Judging from experience here, it won't get back to "normal" until the next big hail storm. Prices went up considerably in the aftermath of the hail storm. Prices came back down when the work was caught up. Normal was/is the lower, more competitive price. What you're seeing now is more workers and more businesses than the trade can support. It may take a year to get back to normal, with some companies going out of business, many guys getting laid off. It won't get back to big $ until the next big storm.

roofwiz74

LOL,thier illegal labor has moved on.there goes that huge profit on jobs.

__________________
You have ONE advantage over me.....you can kiss my butt and I can't!!

Grumpy

REPAIRS. Clean up the storm chasers' slop. We had some good storms a few years back which sent in the chasers. It took about a year before things evened out but then again we target high income areas. People replace roof's because they want a new color.

Had a hail storm last year in a near by suburb. I find we are charging, and getting, more than the insurance companies are willing to pay. I don't feel we are over priced and don't feel we are anywhere near the highest bidder.

dougger222

I'm in the middle of a hail area and starting to get swamped much earlier in the year than normal. Last year I was busy this year I'm swamped. Last year I advertised in three phone books this year one and don't really need that anymore. No flyers, no legal contracts, no door to door, no cold calls. Have one magnet on the dually for legal reasons and have never owned a yard sign. My time is money and if I'm bidding a hail job I better be getting it!!!

Today I went to a roof on a hot lead in Eagan, MN which was hit hard with hail in 1998. Upon inspection of the 1992 roof it was found to have had several holes in the air vents and large marks on the shingles all over the roof. The shingles are starting to curl and the home owner had no idea he had hail damage. A storm chaser had never called or come to his door and an adjuster has never been to his house. The roof next door look about the same and would also suspect the insurance to flip the bill for that roof too.

Just goes to show that even after a large hail storm not all roofs will be done. Did a roof last year that was considered a total loss from the 1998 hail storm. State Farm paid full on the signed contract, $12,800 for a 36sq 7/12 one layer 3 tabs.

dougger222

Grumpy,

Every insurance company is different and even inside one insurance company the adjusters although using the same software will and won't pay for certain things.

Only about 15% of the insurance jobs pay the full price. Most insurance companies pay for all but ridge or drip edge. Some who don't use Xactimate pay about 20-30% less than those who do.

MJW

Doug, the last I heard is that a claim must be within 2 years of the storm. If you find any different let me know.

As for the question, yes repairs are great. The storm chasers give alot of work to the locals when they are gone.
The prices go down a bit because of the cheap labor that is brought in by the scabs. In the last week we have had 2 different groups of 2-3 ask if we are hiring. They say no work, it is very slow, are you hiring. I just wish they would have never started because they are not a local established company. We are and that's why we have work. I'm hoping we don't get a storm and they all go back where they came from or go back to their factory jobs and let the pro's handle the work.

Grumpy

Amen to that.

However, it's ALOT of extra working having to prove your price especially when you know it's a fair price for your market. It's a pain in the butt havign an hour long converation with the insurance broker explaining down to the last nail, and basically proving you need all the materials you claim to need. It's even harder when you've done all that and then the customer decides to keep the money and not do anything with it. It's even harder than that when you do all the work, and then the customer hires some storm chaser behind your back to do the work for cheaper, or finds out his signed away his rights to that guy who came kknocking on his door a few days before he called me and aske dhim to sign this form so he could deal with the insurance company and neglected to read the part that said: "If you choose to hire another roofer, or choose not to proceed with the repairs after XYZ Storm Chasing Inc. has negotiated on your behalf, there will be a consulting fee of $2,000.00". I treat storm work like any other now. I'm tired of the arbitrations and meetings for 15 squares of shingles, I did that when I was a rookie.


Dougger? No legal cotracts?

dougger222

There is no better job than when your done the home owners has a check for full. With insurance jobs you have to wait and wait. Only on newer roofs with hail damages does the home owner have the bulk of the money up front.

I don't spend more than five minutes with adjusters talking prices IF the adjuster calls me at all to talk about my price which of course is for every detail. The ones who don't use Xactimate say, "Were not paying a penny more". When this is said I say, "You should tell your boss who should tell their boss to stop being so cheap and just buy Xactimate".

I had a home owner receive $2,500 extra for his roof claim only to find the cheapest roofer possible to do the work so they could pocket as much as possible. I left one message last Fall and one this Spring asking if they were ready and they've never called back. To be totally honest I'd rather not work for "shady" people.

99% of my jobs are leads so very rarely do I ask the home owners to sign a contract. One in ten jobs the home owners asks to see a contract, half of those sign it. Remember I'm not going to them their comming to me. In the past million dollars in labor charges I've been cut short about $4,000 half of which was on a new roof.

Not sure how the home owner got the insurance company to pay for his 7 year old hail damage but it was State Farm and the home owner had a lot of pull with the insurance some how. I used my cousin in law the insurance restoration all star to meet with the adjuster, perhaps he had something to do with it. The adjusters bid was $10,300, the home owner got State Farm to send the $12,800 (my bid 36sq 7/12) before work was even started! For a small fee of $200 my cousin in law usually gets most roofs aproved from the adjusters. Working thousands of claims in the past 5 years he's learned a lot about hail, water, wind, and fire damage. On the average year he does a million through his company and another million that he brings to his company in his own leads.

Right now with no jobs in the books from advertising I'm booked out for the next three months.

Grumpy

Oh my God, dougger. You are playing with fire not having signed contracts. won't even accept a sales from one of my estimators if I don't have fresh ink on a signed proposal detailing EXACTLY what we will be doing and when we will be paid.

I'm glad business can "seemingly" still be done somewhere in this world on a hand shake, however it's just a matter of time before you do a roof for free and have absolutely no legal recourse.

To me that's just amazingly crazy, I guess it works for you, but I am honestly scared for you.

dougger222

Remember, 90% of the work this year is insurance work, meaning the home owner have little to no out of pocket expense. Still waiting on $4,500 for a new roof I did a few weeks ago. I'm more worried about builders not paying than home owners.

I heard it best from a business man who moved from California to Montana in the 70's. The first job he got in Montana he gave the customer a contract to sign and he looked at it and said, "What's that for?". The customer said if a hand shake wasn't good enough he wasn't interested in doing business with his company. He crossed his fingers, got paid in full, and then learned he wasn't in California anymore. In the 30 years after that he never saw contracts, retired a millionair.

If I had salesman I'd want them to have signed contracts since I'd have no idea who the home owners was. The last two roofs I got approved one yesterday and one today are both owned by CEO's of large companies. Since insurance is paying and both said they don't mind floating any amount of money prior to the insurance payment I know I'm not worried about having them sign a piece of paper.

8 years so far this way and it's working but it's not the right way to run a business but then again most roofing businesses have to advertise to find jobs I don't. With every storm chaser asking the home owners to sign they seem really happy when I don't bother them that way.

Grumpy

Around here customers will screw you on change orders if you don't at least draft and submit them. It's happened to me time and time again.

I guess it's just a difference between where you and I live. People look for ways to screw each other in big cities I suppose.

To me a customer who doesn't want to sign is a red flag and I walk away very fast. Maybe I've lost some good customers but I am also sure I have lost some BIG A-Holes. Take the good with the bad I suppose.

For me to put everythign in writiing is at least the only way I will remember what I planned to do and what I planned to charge the customer. I consider myself to be a professional and am not out to screw anyone but the "no verbal revisions" rule is for my customer's protection, not mine. I WILL forget if it's not written down.

Ed the Roofer

Grumpy,

That sounds so much like me, that it seems as if I wrote your post for you. Plus, I agree 100 % with the rest of what you had to say in that post too.

Ed

POOLMANinCT

insurance money. IT
doesn't matter, wait until somebody uses " insurance $$$$" to do there bathroom over!!!

__________________
......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....

theroofinggod

Have to go w/ Grumpy,and Ed on this one,poolman must`ve worked in new york `cause I`ve seen that one happen too!

MJW

No contracts here either. We have all referrals. We are not a yellow pages company.
I sometimes wish we did have a contract of some kind for insurance bids. Really pisses me off when we get them the claim and then their son-in-law does the job for beer and burgers.

dougger222

That stinks, ah? Bet even if you had a contract they'd still only use your expertise to get the job approved and then full insurance pay. Could it be safe to say customers in MN are better than other states? Just Kidding!!!

Yellow book has made me money but only drive to about 10% of the leads. A month ago got a yellow book call who I gave to my Aunt who lived three miles from the lead. She bid it, got it, and got paid. She's licensed but does no advertising, very little leads after 20 years, odd ah?

MJW, what we should do is write up a contract so if they get approved we either do the job for the insurance dollars or get $1K if they decide to use somebody else.

I'm so swamped I don't have to worry about losing a job here or there to home owners who think they know best. They'll call me back when their roof is leaking and the brother in law is in jail, being picked up the night they tore the whole roof off!

Got a few home owners trying to play the insurance fruad game. The adjusters bid was $21,400 my bid was $23,200. The other two bidders bid for $15K and $16K, both only use Mex workers and salesman, the roofing contractors I love beating up! If I don't get the job oh well, but I did his moms roof three years ago and she was very happy and replaced his vent with metal vents five years ago. After all that time he kept my card and called me after his roof was approved by Met Life, one of the best, they own Xactimate. He wants me to bring out three bundles of shingles to lay out on his for a while so he make sure the shingles are the right color for his house, not a bad idea but for the $50 and driving time better get this one!

Going to work day three on a multi million dollar house in Lakeville today, better get my butt moving, don't want the crew waiting on the boss!!!