My Roof Was Damaged by the Illinois Tornado Outbreak. What Should I Do First?

If your roof was damaged by the Illinois tornado outbreak, the first thing to do is not call your insurance company. It’s document the damage, tarp any open areas, and get a licensed contractor on your roof before the adjuster ever shows up. That order matters more than most homeowners realize, and it’s the difference between a full payout and one that covers maybe half of what the actual repair costs.

Premier Group Roofs has worked through every major storm event that has hit Bloomingdale, DuPage County, and Chicagoland for over 12 years. We’ve seen what happens when homeowners call the insurer first and what happens when they don’t. The process below is exactly what we tell every client the day after a storm.

What’s Happening on the Ground in Illinois Right Now

Illinois had 146 confirmed tornadoes in 2025, which was second in the entire country. In 2026, the storms have been coming earlier and harder. The EF-3 tornado on March 10 tore through Kankakee County and damaged around 500 structures. Then in April, five more confirmed tornadoes swept through the Rockford region in a single week. Country Financial alone reported its highest claim volumes in years from Durand, Lena, and Bloomington. What that kind of volume means practically is that insurance companies send CAT adjusters to Illinois. CAT stands for Catastrophe. These are out-of-state claim handlers brought in to process large numbers of claims fast. They’re professionals, but they’re not familiar with Illinois building codes, local labor costs, or the specific way tornado wind uplift damages a roof differently from hail. And they move quickly. Homeowners who meet them without a contractor present almost always get an initial offer that misses things and those things are hard to recover once the adjuster closes their file.

After a tornado in Illinois, insurance companies send CAT adjusters unfamiliar with local codes and costs. Having Premier Group present at the inspection is how you protect your claim from the start.

What to Do, Step by Step

1. Stay off the roof until you get the all-clear. This sounds obvious but it gets skipped. Tornado damage is not always visible from the outside. A roof that looks intact from your driveway can have broken rafters, shifted ridge beams, or wall connections that failed under wind uplift. None of that is visible until someone gets up there and looks. Wait for daylight. Wait for the official all-clear from local emergency management. Then walk the perimeter from the ground before anyone goes up.
2. Document everything before you touch anything. Walk every side of the house and take photos and video of every bit of damage you can see from the ground. Get the roof from all four sides, the gutters, the siding on every elevation, window screens, your HVAC unit, any outdoor metal surfaces, and the inside of the attic if you can safely access it. Then go to weather.gov, find the storm report for your zip code and the date it happened, and save it as a PDF. That NWS report is official federal documentation that a tornado touched down at your location. Your insurer cannot dispute it, and it is the single strongest piece of evidence you have. Do not move debris, remove branches from the roof, or start any cleanup until you have documented everything. Once you clean it up, it’s much harder to prove what the storm actually did.
3. Tarp open areas right away — your policy requires it. If your roof has holes, missing shingles over large sections, or exposed decking, you have a legal obligation under your insurance policy to prevent further damage. This is called the Duty to Mitigate, and it exists in virtually every Illinois homeowners policy. If you don’t tarp and water gets in over the next few days, your insurer can deny coverage for that water damage even if the tornado created the opening. This is one of the most common ways claims get partially denied. Premier Group does emergency tarp installation throughout Illinois. We bill it directly to your insurance company on approved claims, so there is no out-of-pocket cost for this step. Call 630-426-3504 and we can set up an inspection.
4. Call us before you call your insurer. This is the one thing most homeowners don’t know to do, and it costs them the most. Tornado wind creates damage that doesn’t always look like damage from the ground. Wind uplift can lift shingles, break the seal strip bond underneath, and reseat them so they look fine. They’re not fine. That compromised seal is how your roof fails in the next storm, six months from now. An adjuster looking at a roof that appears intact from above has no reason to include it in the scope. A contractor who knows what wind uplift looks like does. Premier Group provides free inspections within 24 hours across Bloomingdale, DuPage County, the Rockford area, and Kankakee County. Our written inspection report, in your hands before the adjuster arrives, is documented evidence they have to account for. Call 630-426-3504.
5. File the claim within 48 hours. Call your insurer’s claims line with the storm date, your policy number, and a general description of what you found. Get a claim number and write it down. Ask when the adjuster will be scheduled. Keep it factual. Don’t estimate damage amounts, speculate about causes, or describe anything as old or worn. Just describe what you observed after the storm. Everything you say in that first call gets noted in your claim file.
6. Have us present when the adjuster comes. Ask the adjuster’s office to confirm your contractor can be present before you lock in the appointment time. You have the right to have a contractor at the inspection. Insurers cannot prohibit it. We walk every slope of the roof with the adjuster. We point out tornado-specific damage patterns. We make sure the scope of loss includes code-required upgrades before they leave. Here’s something most homeowners don’t know: under the Illinois Building Code, if more than 25% of a roof’s surface is damaged, the entire roof has to be brought up to current code during replacement. After a significant tornado, most affected roofs hit that threshold. That means full replacement, not spot repairs. The difference in the insurance payout can be tens of thousands of dollars, and it frequently gets left out of the initial CAT adjuster estimate.
7. Review the offer before you accept anything. The first number the insurer sends is almost never the right number. On tornado damage claims in Illinois, supplement recovery averages 35 to 55 percent above the initial adjuster estimate when a contractor is actively involved. Common items that get left out: ridge cap replacement, ice and water shield underlayment required by Illinois code, drip edge, pipe boot flashing, step flashing, and the overhead and profit that covers the cost of coordinating all trades. If the offer falls short, we prepare a supplement with full documentation and submit it to your insurer. Do not sign anything or accept any payment until we’ve reviewed the scope with you.

Watch Out for Storm Chasers

After the March 2026 Kankakee outbreak, trucks from Texas, Florida, and a dozen other states were in those neighborhoods within 48 hours. That happens after every major tornado in Illinois. Some of these out-of-state contractors do solid work. Many don’t. And almost all of them will be back home long before any warranty issues surface. Before you sign anything with any contractor, check these four things:

• Valid Illinois roofing contractor license (verify the number at the IDFPR website before they leave your driveway)
• General liability insurance and workers compensation coverage — ask for the certificates, not just verbal confirmation
• References from recent Illinois storm damage work specifically, not just from wherever they’re based
• A written scope of work with materials, manufacturer, warranty terms, and code compliance spelled out before work starts

Premier Group Roofs is licensed in Illinois and has been serving DuPage County and Chicagoland for over 12 years. We’re not driving in from another state for storm season. We’ll be here when the warranty matters.

Tornado damaged your roof? Call Premier Group now.
630-426-3504 | Free emergency inspection within 24 hours
Bloomingdale · Naperville · Aurora · Wheaton · Downers Grove · DuPage County · Rockford area · Kankakee area
You pay only your deductible. We handle everything else.

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