Storm Damage Restoration in Lancaster, PA

Stop the loss growing before anything else

After a storm the damage that has already happened is usually not the expensive part. The expensive part is what keeps happening while the building sits open — rain entering through a lifted roof or a broken window, saturating insulation, running down inside wall cavities, and starting the same 48-hour mould clock as any other water loss.

So the first visit is about stabilisation: tarping the roof, boarding openings, and extracting standing water. Your policy also carries a duty to protect the property from further damage, so prompt stabilisation is not only sensible, it protects the claim. Keep receipts for anything you buy yourself.

Wind, hail and water each leave a different problem

• Wind. Lifted or missing shingles, ridge and flashing damage, and downed limbs through the roof. The serious issue is often not the visible hole but the shingles that lifted and reseated, which look intact from the ground and leak quietly for months.
• Hail. Bruising that fractures the shingle mat without obviously breaking the surface. It shortens roof life significantly and is frequently missed on a casual inspection, which is why hail claims are so often underpaid.
• Water intrusion. Whatever came in has to be treated as a water loss — moisture mapped, extracted, and dried to a verified standard rather than left to air out.
• Fallen trees. Structural impact needs assessment before anyone works underneath it, and removal has to happen before the building can be made weather-tight.

Flooding is a separate matter, and a separate policy

This trips people up every time a creek comes up in Lancaster County. Water that falls on your roof and gets in through storm damage is generally covered by your homeowners policy. Water that rises from the ground — a swollen creek, overwhelmed storm drains, surface runoff entering at grade — is flood, and standard homeowners policies exclude it entirely. That needs separate flood insurance.

Groundwater flooding is also Category 3 water, so it is handled like a contaminated water loss: porous materials that absorbed it come out rather than being dried. We will tell you which category you are dealing with at the first visit, because it changes both the work and who pays for it.

Documentation is what the claim turns on

Storm claims are settled on evidence, and the evidence is easiest to gather before anything is cleaned up. We photograph everything on arrival, record moisture readings, and scope the damage in the format adjusters work from. We will meet your adjuster on site. If their scope misses something — and on hail it frequently does — a documented record of what was there is what gets it reopened.

A word of caution: storms bring door-knockers into Lancaster County within days, often from out of state, offering to handle your claim and "cover your deductible". Waiving a deductible is insurance fraud, and the contractors offering it are rarely around for the warranty. Check that whoever you use is local, licensed and still going to exist next year.

Frequently Asked Questions