Documenting a coastal property before hurricane season

Document the property before the season, not after the storm. The most expensive sentence in a coastal claim is some version of "that was already like that," and it is expensive because nobody can disprove it when the building was never documented beforehand.

A dated, measurable aerial record does not prove damage. It establishes condition on a specific date, which turns out to be the thing everyone actually ends up arguing about.

Why documenting afterward is weaker

We do a lot of post storm work and it is worth doing. It is simply a weaker instrument, for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the capture.

Airspace closes. Temporary flight restrictions after a major event are normal and can hold for days while emergency operations run, so the first available flight is often not the first day. Every capture provider, adjuster and roofing contractor in the region is working the same week, and priority goes to whoever already had a relationship. Emergency repairs start immediately, so tarps go on and debris gets cleared, and the record you capture is already one step removed from what happened.

The deeper problem is that a roof photographed once, after the storm, shows damage. It does not show which part is new. That distinction is the entire claim.

None of this applies to a flight in May.

What belongs in the record

Every roof, at resolution

Roof condition is where most storm claims live and where almost nobody has good documentation, because getting up there is a chore and it stays a chore. A high resolution orthomosaic over every roof plane, with the flashing, the penetrations, the equipment curbs and the existing patches all visible, is the highest value piece of the whole capture.

Every elevation, including the one nobody photographs

Windows, sliding doors, railings, sealant, stucco, paint. The north side too. These are also the surfaces the association will be making capital decisions about whether or not a storm ever comes.

Geometry you can measure, not only pictures

A colorized point cloud means that eight months from now somebody can measure a facade area, count openings on an elevation, or check a railing height without going back to the property. That matters as much for writing a repair scope as it does for a claim.

Site, grade and where the water goes

Where it pooled before. Where the grade sits relative to the slab and the pool deck. On flat coastal ground this is also the data an engineer will want if the association ever studies drainage seriously.

Thermal, if the roof is already a question

Radiometric thermal flown in the right conditions shows moisture already sitting in a roof assembly. Useful for a claim. More useful for the maintenance decision you are going to have to make anyway.

What the association gets besides a stronger claim

Boards sometimes book this as an insurance expense, which undersells it badly. The same collection supports the reserve study, because roof areas, facade areas, deck square footage and railing counts get measured instead of estimated. It supports scoping and bidding a repair project, because every bidder takes off the same conditions. It gives the engineer performing a milestone inspection documentation of surfaces that are hard to reach. And it belongs to the association rather than to whichever vendor happens to be working on the building this year.

The flight is a few hours on site. The record is useful for years.

Timing

Atlantic hurricane season runs June through November. The practical window is spring, and the practical reason is scheduling rather than weather. By the last week of May every association on this coast has had the same idea.

If you manage several buildings, or an association owns more than one property, put them on one trip. Mobilization is the fixed cost and spreading it is where the savings live.

Ask your carrier what they want to see

We are a capture company. We are not your adjuster and we are not your attorney. What documentation actually helps in a claim depends on your policy and your circumstances, and your carrier almost certainly has an opinion. That is a much better conversation to have in April than in October.