What does commercial hail damage repair cover?

Damage assessment and repair on low slope and metal commercial roofing systems (TPO, EPDM, modified bitumen, standing seam metal, aggregate surfaced built-up), documented against the storm event that caused it. The scope is written from the survey rather than from a checklist.

What is different about a commercial hail claim?

Two things mainly. The file needs the physical damage and the storm event tied together, and the condition below the membrane often matters as much as the visible surface. Both are more involved than on a house.

Does a short hail record mean my building was not hit?

No. The plan counts recorded events, and a count of five does not prove whether a given building was or was not hit. Our reading, not the plan's: the storm half of the file should name the specific event, its date and its recorded size.

How do you find the storm event?

The NOAA Storm Events Database is searchable by parish and date, and it is the primary source the parish plan names for its own record. We search St. John the Baptist Parish for the loss window and name the event on the file.

Do I need a core cut to prove damage?

The visible surface documents the surface damage. Whether the insulation took damage or is now wet is a separate question, and it decides scope. The moisture survey and the core cut are set out on our commercial roof inspections page.

Can a core cut affect my membrane warranty?

A core cut is destructive, so on a roof still under manufacturer warranty the number of cores and the method are agreed with the manufacturer beforehand. The warranty issuer decides its own position on hail damage.

Will you deal with my insurance company?

No, and be wary of a roofer who says they will. What we do is document the damage and the storm, and price the repair. Questions about your policy go to your insurer or a public adjuster.

Does a hail repair need a permit in LaPlace?

Louisiana requires permitting and inspection of reroofing, and for buildings other than one and two family dwellings the code reference is International Building Code Chapter 15. Whether a smaller repair needs a permit is confirmed with the St. John the Baptist Parish Permit Division on (985) 651-5565.

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Commercial Hail Damage Repair in LaPlace, LA

Big Easy Roofing assesses and repairs commercial hail damage across LaPlace and the east bank of St. John the Baptist Parish. A commercial hail claim needs two documented halves: the physical damage to the membrane, and the storm event that caused it. In this parish the second half deserves particular care.

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Service

City

Two halvesPhysical damage plus storm proof

Five incidentsIn the parish plan hail record

IBC Chapter 15Code for the building

No coverage readA separate role

LaPlace commercial hail damage repair at a glance

A commercial hail claim needs two halves documented and tied together: the physical damage to the membrane and its components, and the record of the storm that caused it. The parish plan says there have historically been five hail incidents here, most often 0.75 inch. Our reading, not the plan's: the storm half should name the specific event.

The two halves of a claim

Physical damage AND storm proof

Physical damage is documented on the roof and matched to a specific storm event, and that event has to be one that could have caused it. A file missing either half is where claims run into trouble.

The parish hail record

2021 Hazard Mitigation Plan

The plan says there have historically been five hail incidents in St. John the Baptist Parish, with diameters from 0.75 inches to 1.75 inches since 1990, most often 0.75 inch.

Which office covers you

St. John the Baptist Parish

Any reroof scoped from a hail claim is filed with the Permit Division on (985) 651-5565 at 1811 W. Airline Highway in LaPlace, through MyGovernmentOnline or in person.

Which code applies

IBC Chapter 15

Louisiana R.S. 37:3737(I)(1), originated by Act 239 of 2025 and recodified by Act 881 of 2026, routes reroofing of buildings other than one and two family dwellings to International Building Code Chapter 15.

What we describe

Damage, not cover

The roofer describes damage and prices work. Your insurer, working with you and any public adjuster you engage, decides what happens with the claim. We do not step into that role.

What decides scope

Below the membrane

Whether the insulation took damage is assessed by the moisture survey and, where needed, a core cut. Both are set out on our commercial roof inspections page.

This page addresses roofing on buildings treated as nonresidential for licensing and code purposes. Mixed use buildings and residential multifamily need their own classification and code review.

Everything on this page about the parish plan is what St. John the Baptist Parish published when we read it in September 2026. Its 17% hail frequency figure uses records from 1990 to 2020, and its diameter range is reported since 1990. Commercial hail repairs are priced on the assembly and the access rather than a published range, so call Big Easy Roofing for a scoped price.

How hail marks each commercial roofing system

Hail damage looks different on every commercial roofing system, and some of those signatures are visible from the ground while others are not. What is consistent across all of them is that the visible surface is a starting point and the condition below the membrane is what decides scope.

System	What hail leaves visible	What is hidden below	What documents the damage
TPO single ply	Circular fractures in the membrane surface, punctures at points of impact on unballasted areas	Whether the reinforcement scrim beneath the surface has fractured, and whether water is now sitting in the insulation	Chalk-marked impact map plus core cuts where the survey suggests they are worth doing
EPDM rubber	Punctures on unballasted membrane, tears at seams under impact	Whether the impact reached the substrate, and whether wet insulation is progressing beneath a puncture	Impact map, seam probe, and a core cut through any suspect impact site
Modified bitumen	Surface fracture, cratering of the top ply, granule loss where the top sheet is granulated	Whether the fracture penetrated to the base ply, and whether water is tracking laterally under the top sheet	Visible inspection is often enough for surface damage; core cut through any penetration
Standing seam metal	Dents in the panel, dents in flashings and gutters, coating fracture at impact points	Whether the coating fracture will progress to corrosion at the impact site	Photographic damage map with measured dent counts and diameters, plus a coating condition assessment
Aggregate surfaced built-up	Aggregate displacement and puncture at exposed sheet where aggregate has moved	Whether the built-up membrane below took impact through the aggregate	Aggregate depth measurement, plus a core cut where displacement suggests the membrane took a hit

On any of the five systems, the visible surface is the start of the survey, not the end. Whether the scrim, the base ply or the insulation below took damage is a separate question that a walk survey alone cannot answer.

What a hail claim file needs, and where the roofer stops

The insurer handles the claim; we describe damage. A useful commercial hail claim file puts four things together in one document. The line between the two roles matters more than it looks, because blurring it is where commercial hail claims most often go wrong.

Physical damage documentation

On the roof, dated

Impact map with location and count, photographs at close range and in context, measurements where damage size is relevant, and a written description of each finding, all dated and located on a roof plan.

The storm match

A named event

The file identifies a specific storm event: date, approximate time and hail size. The NOAA Storm Events Database is searchable by parish and date, and it is the primary source the parish plan itself names.

Below-membrane condition

Survey and cores

Whether the insulation below the membrane took damage is a separate question, and it decides scope. The moisture survey and any core cut become part of the hail file.

What the roofer does not do

Interpret your policy

The roofer does not tell you what your policy provides, whether a peril applies, or how a deductible works. What we hand you is the damage documentation and the repair scope.

Why the storm record matters as much as the damage

A claim that describes visible damage with no matching storm, or a bad storm with no visible damage, is a file with a gap in it. The two halves have to agree with each other.

So the storm record is pulled at the survey rather than at the invoice, and the event is named on the file next to the damage it is said to have caused.

Why we do not decide cover

The roles are separate: your insurer handles the claim, and the roofer describes damage and prices work. A roofer who promises what a policy will do is making a promise it is not their role to make.

On a substantial commercial claim a public adjuster is a separately licensed professional who represents the building owner rather than the insurer. That is a different role from ours, and we work alongside one rather than in place of one.

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The parish hail record and what it means for a claim file

The St. John the Baptist Parish Hazard Mitigation Plan, updated in 2021, profiles hail separately. It counts five hail incidents, sizes from 0.75 inches to 1.75 inches, and a 17% annual chance. Five recorded incidents, most often 0.75 inches across, shape how the storm half of a file is built.

What the plan records

The plan says "Historically, there have been five hail incidents in St. John the Baptist Parish. Hailstorm diameters have ranged from 0.75 inches to 1.75 inches per the National Climatic Data Center since 1990. The most frequently recorded hail sizes have been 0.75-inch in diameter."

It adds that "There have been no significant hailstorm events in St. John the Baptist Parish since the 2016 St. John the Baptist Parish HMP update," gives the "annual chance of occurrence calculated at 17% based on the records for the past 30 years (1990-2020)", and puts the worst case at hail up to 1.75 inches in diameter. You can read it on the parish Hazard Mitigation Plan Update page.

The one inch mark

The same plan notes that NOAA characterizes a thunderstorm as severe when it produces "Hail of 1 inch in diameter or larger". The size recorded most often in the parish, 0.75 inches, sits under that mark.

Our reading, not the plan's: where five incidents are on record and the size recorded most often is under that mark, the storm half of a claim file has to name the specific event, its date and its recorded size, rather than rely on the general point that hail happens here.

What the record does not tell you

A count of five incidents is a count of recorded events. It does not prove that a given building was or was not hit, and it stops at 2020.

Our reading, not the plan's: for a loss after that, the date and the parish are searched in the NOAA Storm Events Database directly, and where a storm is not in the record, that is stated on the file rather than left for the insurer to find.

Big Easy Roofing Process

Four steps, and the storm record is pulled in parallel with the damage survey rather than after it, because a file missing either half is a file with a gap.

A roofer documenting hail impact marks on a commercial low slope membrane roof in LaPlace

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Damage survey on the roof

Membrane, flashings, penetrations, gutters and edge metal all inspected and impact mapped. Photographs at close range and in context, dated and located on the roof plan. Where the visible damage suggests the insulation needs checking, the moisture survey follows.

Storm record pulled in parallel

The NOAA Storm Events Database searched for hail events in St. John the Baptist Parish in the loss window. The specific event and its recorded hail size are named on the file next to the damage.

Written damage report and repair scope

Findings, the matched storm event where there is one, the recommended repair scope, and the permit route for the repair. What the roofer will and will not do inside the claim process is stated plainly.

Repair to IBC Chapter 15 and the manufacturer detail

Once you have decided how to proceed, the repair is carried out to the code and to the manufacturer detail where the roof still carries a system warranty, with any permit filed with the parish Permit Division.

Everything else we do in LaPlace

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in LaPlace, each with its own page and scope of work. The recover or tear off decision is on the commercial replacement page, and the low slope defect repair table is on the commercial repairs page.

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