If you’ve already seen the signs of hail damage (see our 8 signs guide) or started documenting the damage, the next question is when you have to act. In Colorado, the answer is shorter than most homeowners expect: roughly one year from the date of loss for most first-party property claims, including hail damage to roofs.
This guide walks through how the timing works, why the clock matters, and what a reasonable timeline looks like from storm to filed claim to completed repair.
The one-year clock
Colorado state law requires that first-party insurance claims for storm damage to residential property be filed within one year from the date of loss. That’s the date the damage occurred — not the date you noticed it, and not the date you got the inspection. For hail damage specifically, the date of loss is the date of the storm.
Your policy may have additional notice provisions — “prompt notice” requirements, cooperation clauses, examinations under oath — that operate alongside the statute. Read the claims section of your policy or call your agent; the specifics vary by carrier.
This is general information about Colorado’s statutory framework. Your insurance agent or carrier is the right source for claim-specific questions — what your particular policy requires, how it defines date of loss, what supplemental claim options you may have.
Why timing matters more than it sounds
One year sounds like plenty of time. In practice, two things compress it:
- Damage that isn’t immediately visible. Hail bruising on shingles often doesn’t cause leaks for months or years. Granule loss accelerates UV aging over a season. A storm in May may produce a leak in November or shingle failure the following spring — and the date of loss is still that May storm.
- Multi-storm seasons. Colorado often gets two or three significant hail events between May and September. If you wait to see whether the next storm makes things worse, you may run out of time on the first storm without realizing it.
The practical implication: if a storm large enough to drop hail of any size passed through your neighborhood, the safe move is to get an inspection on the calendar within a few weeks, regardless of whether anything looks obviously damaged from the ground.
A reasonable timeline from storm to repair
Most claims that move smoothly follow roughly this rhythm. Yours may vary by carrier and by the size of the storm.
Week 1: stabilize and document
- Address any active leaks with temporary protection.
- Photograph anything visibly damaged from the ground.
- Save the date of the storm somewhere durable (calendar, notes app, an email to yourself).
Weeks 2–4: photo-documented inspection
- Schedule a roof inspection with a reputable Colorado roofer.
- The inspection should produce drone or rooftop photos, close-ups of any damage observed, a written scope of work, and counts of impact marks per test square where applicable.
- If you want a second look from another contractor for a comparison, this is the right time.
That’s what we mean when we say we provide a photo-documented inspection. The findings and the written scope are what we give you; you take those to your insurer.
Weeks 4–8: file the claim
- Call your insurance carrier’s claims line. They’ll assign a claim number and schedule an adjuster.
- The adjuster typically inspects the roof within 1–3 weeks of filing.
- You work directly with your adjuster. Your inspection scope and photos are useful reference material to share, not a substitute for the adjuster’s own inspection.
Weeks 8–12: scope and approval
- The carrier issues a coverage decision and, if approved, a scope of work plus payment schedule.
- If the scope disputes anything in your inspection, that’s typical — supplements are common. The roofer and adjuster work the scope together; you make the final call on whether to accept.
Week 12 onward: repair or replace
- Material ordering, schedule, install, final inspection, and any code-required upgrades go in here.
- Most replacements take 1–3 days of on-site work plus prep and cleanup.
That full sequence — storm to completed repair — typically runs 3–6 months. If you started at the back of the year-long clock, you’d be cutting it close.
Multi-storm seasons and second claims
If your home is hit by two separate storms within a season, the typical process is two separate claim files — one per date of loss — and the deductibles apply per event. That can change the math on whether the second event is worth filing for.
If a second storm makes damage worse on a claim already filed for the first storm, that’s a supplemental claim, not a new one — but you may need to document the additional damage and tie it to the new storm date so the carrier review stays connected to the right event.
What to do now
If a storm of any size moved through your neighborhood in the last few months and you haven’t had the roof looked at, that’s the action item. The inspection is fast, the documentation is durable, and it leaves you with a clean record either way — damage to file on, or a confirmed clean roof.
For documentation framing, our documenting storm damage guide covers what good evidence looks like. For visual signs to watch for, the 8 signs of hail damage guide is the right primer. If you’ve already concluded the damage is real, hail damage roof repair covers the work itself. And for the framework that ties documentation and inspection to the broader claim, our insurance claims process page explains how we contribute to the process — you work directly with your insurer.