Storm damage roof documentation: what should you capture in the first 72 hours?

Your phone's zoom from the ground is enough to start. If you worked through our hurricane roof prep checklist before landfall, your pre-storm baseline photos are already saved. Every "after" shot you take in the next 72 hours pairs with a "before", so you have a before-and-after pair of the roof.

This page is general information for Florida homeowners, current as of November 2026 — not legal or insurance advice, and not an encouragement to file an insurance claim. Whether to file is your decision, made with your insurance company or agent. Verify specifics with your own policy, your agent, or the Florida Department of Financial Services.

This shot list is common practice, not a statutory requirement — no Florida law dictates your photo count.

Two practical notes. Your smartphone already timestamps every photo in its metadata, so keep the originals — screenshots and edited copies strip that data. And if you own a drone, check the FAA's rules before flying it; any business use, including a roofer's "free drone inspection," requires an FAA Part 107 certificate. Ask the door-knocker to show one. After a major storm, temporary flight restrictions can also ground drones in disaster-response areas — check the FAA's B4UFLY app before flying.

Florida carriers — especially Citizens and surplus lines — use proprietary forms, so read your own policy's Duties After Loss section, which sets what the policy requires of you; your insurance company or agent can explain it. If you can't do it safely yourself, same-day emergency tarping stops the water the day you call. FEMA's Operation Blue Roof can install free temporary sheeting on qualifying shingle roofs, but only once FEMA opens a mission for your county, so private tarping is usually the realistic first option.

Florida's DFS tells storm victims to build an itemized inventory — each damaged item with its cost, purchase date, and serial number — attach receipts for high-value items, and log every repair expense.

For hurricanes, the date of loss is the date of landfall; for tornadoes, other windstorms, and severe rain, it's the date NOAA verifies the event. The full mechanics of the deadline and supplemental-window rules live on our coverage guide.

These clocks pause during a DFS mediation or an alternative dispute resolution proceeding in the policy and, on conditions the statute sets, while a policyholder hasn't provided material claim information the insurer requested within 10 days (FS 627.70131(8)). The Office of Insurance Regulation can give insurers more time only by an order based on a Governor-declared emergency, a reportable security breach or an information technology issue, and no more than 30 additional days to pay or deny a claim (FS 627.70131(5)(a)1.). Under FS 627.70131(7)(a), a payment on an initial or supplemental claim made after day 60, or after any period an OIR order adds, whichever is later, bears interest from the date the insurer received notice of the claim. What the statutes set from there — the Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights, the insurer's clock, deductibles and replacement-cost payments — is in our Florida roof insurance claim guide.

For personal lines residential policies, the hurricane deductible applies on an annual basis to covered hurricane losses in a calendar year under policies from the same insurer or insurer group, and for a later hurricane that year the insurer may apply the greater of the remaining hurricane deductible or the deductible for other perils; insurers may require policyholders to report hurricane losses below the deductible, or to keep receipts or other records of them, to apply them to later hurricane claims (FS 627.701(5)(a)). For what Florida law says about replacement-cost and actual-cash-value payments, see whether homeowners insurance covers roof replacement in Florida.

• A "free inspection" in exchange for filing a claim. Contractors may not offer anything of value in exchange for an inspection or a claim, and a contractor's ad that encourages you to contact a contractor or public adjuster to make a roof claim may not be used to solicit you unless it carries the statute's three notices, in type at least 12 points and at least half as large as the ad's largest type (FS 489.147).
• An offer to waive, absorb, or "handle" your deductible in exchange for an inspection or a claim. FS 489.147 bars a contractor from offering a deductible waiver in exchange for a roof inspection or a claim, with fines up to $10,000 per violation, and a contractor who knowingly or willfully, with intent to injure, defraud or deceive, pays, waives or rebates a deductible commits a third-degree felony (FS 817.234(7)(d)). You are responsible for your deductible.
• A contractor "negotiating with your insurer for you." Interpreting policies or adjusting claims requires a public adjuster license.
• Pressure to sign an assignment of benefits. AOBs are prohibited on policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2023 — nobody needs to "take over" your claim.
• An out-of-state license number. Florida doesn't honor them. Look for a Florida certificate or registration (CCC or RC prefix) and verify it at myfloridalicense.com. A contract with an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable by the contractor (FS 489.128), and DBPR notes that unlicensed contracting during a declared emergency is elevated to a third-degree felony. Report suspected unlicensed activity to DBPR at 1-866-532-1440.
• Demands for large payment before materials arrive.

For how roof age figures in underwriting, see whether an old roof can get you dropped in Florida.

The 10-day cancellation right. If the governor declared a state of emergency, your property sits inside the declared area, and you signed a roof repair or replacement contract within 180 days of the event, FS 489.147(6) lets you cancel without penalty within 10 days of signing or by the official start date (when work installing materials for the finished roof begins, a permit is issued, or a code-compliant temporary repair is made), whichever comes first, by certified mail, return receipt requested, or another mailing that provides proof, sent to the address in the contract. A contractor that signs the contract during the declared emergency must include this right, or attach it, in bold type of at least 14 points immediately before your signature (FS 489.147(6)(b)); a contract signed then without it is its own red flag.

Public adjuster fee caps. Florida caps a public adjuster's fee at 10% of claim payments for claims arising from a governor-declared emergency and made within one year after the declaration, and 20% otherwise (FS 626.854). On reopened or supplemental claims the fee can be based only on the new money obtained, up to 20% of it (or the 10% emergency cap where that applies), and if the insurer pays, or agrees in writing to pay, the full limit for a coverage part within 14 days after the loss or within 10 days after the adjuster's contract is signed, whichever is later, the fee on that part is capped at 1%. Public adjusters may also solicit only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday — a 9 p.m. knock tells you something.

Insurer-paid mediation. Under FS 627.7015, a policyholder may request a nonbinding mediation conference through the Department of Financial Services before appraisal or litigation, and the insurer generally bears its cost. A claim becomes eligible only after the insurer has paid or denied it, or elected to reinspect, and the statute leaves out some disputes, such as suspected fraud or an amount in controversy under $500 unless both sides agree to mediate it. If a written settlement is reached, the policyholder has 3 business days to rescind it unless the check has been cashed or deposited. The department's Consumer Helpline is 1-877-MY-FL-CFO (1-877-693-5236). Pensacola-area homeowners will find local resources on our Pensacola roof insurance claims page — and the rest of our guides live in the complete Florida roof insurance hub. If the decision has already come, our guide to roof claim decisions quotes Florida's statutes on the insurer's decision and the Office of Insurance Regulation's definition of a claim “closed without payment.”