The Writing's on the Roof
When the adjuster inspects a roof, she will typically use a piece of chalk of soapstone to mark up the roof.
Neither the chalk nor the soapstone will damage the roof and they will both wash off during the next heavy rainstorm.
The first thing an adjuster will do is mark a test square on each side of the roof. A test square is a 10'x10' square.
Inside the test square, the adjuster will mark the different damages that they find. Typically adjusters are looking for 6-8 hail hits in a test square on all the sides of the roof in order to cover a total replacement.
The adjuster will look for hail hits and circle them with the chalk in order to make them more visible and to show that she has inspected the damage and that they indeed are hail hits.
The adjuster is looking for dark round marks on the surface of the shingle. The marks should give or have some sort of indentation when pressed with a finger. Adjuster's pictures are randomly reviewed by their supervisors in order to ensure that they are correctly identifying damage and not abusing their power.
Any damage not matching that of storm damage is marked. "M" for mechanical, "NP" for nail pop, and "B" for blister. The picture above is clearly mechanical damage because it is linear in shape.
Once the adjuster has found and circled the damage in the test square, they make a note of how much damage they found. In the photo above the adjuster found at least eight hail hits in the test square on the right side of the house. If the adjuster found five hits on the back side of the house, the text would be, "B=5".
The adjuster then takes an overview photo of the entire test square, showing the damage and the notes.
