Hail Damaged Wood Shake + Haag Education Interview
Haag Education (what used to be known generically as Haag Engineering) has been in business for 95 years.
As independent cat adjusters, we should know them well. They’ve got a ton of excellent resources that help adjusters identify storm damage as well as be able to identify what is NOT storm damage. I’ve got a bin full of their field books and use them constantly on cat.
In this video, I interview Ryan Holdhusen, Vice President of Haag Education, about just who Haag is, what they offer adjusters, AND some very cool news about their powerful Haag Certified Inspector program.
If you are a cat adjuster and you’ve been able to inspect at least 100 roofs (which is one or two storm’s worth for a new person) and you’re looking to pick up some advanced training that will truly move the needle on your work product and income, STOP looking at the drone training and run don’t walk to the Haag Certified Inspector program.
Whether you do it online or in a live classroom, this training will probably provide the single biggest improvement in your work product than anything else out there. The cost of the training will pay itself back 100-fold the first year and continue to pay dividends for the rest of your career.
Answer to the Question of the Day: A wood shake MUST be split AND have a hail impact that is clearly associated with that split.
A split by itself is likely a footfall. An impact by itself will weather back in to match and does NOT constitute function damage to a wood shake. Roofers will want to argue about this, but this has been the standard for every carrier I’ve worked for since 1999 and it hasn’t changed.
In fact, you can find this information in Haag’s Wood Roofs Damage Assessment Field Guide. Just flip it open to that page and show the roofer that this is the standard you must apply to wood shake (or wood shingles for that matter).
Here’s a classic hail damaged shake:
