Print it. Tape it to the tower.
The storm week is won before the storm.
In our experience, most of the money in a hail event is decided in the first 72 hours: who reaches the customer first, what gets documented, and whether the lot has a plan. Here is the whole sequence.
48 hours before: the forecast
- Pull your sold-customer list for the last six model years with phone and email. Confirm you have text consent on file.
- Decide now who owns the storm: one name for customers, one name for inventory, one name for the carrier.
- Move front-line units under cover or to the far end of the lot, aged units first. Photograph the lot in its pre-storm state.
- Confirm your stock-policy carrier's claim number, your deductible per unit, and your open-lot coverage limits. Put them on one page.
- Draft the customer text now, before the storm: "If your vehicle took hail, we have a plan for you. Reply YES for a complimentary assessment."
Storm day: the first 24 hours
- Send the customer text within hours, not days. The tents will be up within days, and they text too.
- Walk the lot with a scope sheet: stock number, panel-by-panel dent count, photos. Grade every unit before anyone quotes a price.
- Open the stock-policy claim the same day. One claim number, one adjuster, one point of contact.
- Set the service drive up for intake: a greeter, an inspection lane, an authorization form in the store's name.
- Tell your advisors the rules: never promise a waived deductible, never quote a coverage outcome, always book an inspection.
Days two through seven: the claims
- Inspect every customer who replied within 72 hours. A documented assessment with photos beats a tent's guess every time.
- Write every estimate as a line-item estimate on the store's letterhead, with the procedures a hail repair actually requires, not a body-shop guess.
- File each customer's claim for them, with the estimate and photos attached. Record the claim number, the adjuster, and the inspection date on one board.
- Screen for total-loss risk before you schedule a repair. A vehicle that will total is a trade-in conversation, not a repair order.
- Arrange rentals only where the policy carries rental coverage. Put the store's loaner policy in writing before the first request.
Weeks two through eight: the repairs and the money
- Repair in the order the money says: floor-planned inventory and approved customer claims first.
- Photograph every procedure the carrier only pays on documentation. The photo is the invoice.
- When the carrier's first estimate comes in short, document the gap line by line and resubmit. Never inflate, never add work that was not performed.
- Close every repair with a signed return walkthrough and a written statement: what the carrier paid, what the repair cost, what the store earned.
- Reconcile payouts against received carrier checks every week. Ask for the review while the customer is still smiling.
This is the sequence the Dealership Hail Program runs for partner stores, with DHR staffing every step. If you would rather have it installed than run it yourself, that is the walkthrough.