The inspector is paid when the job sells. A paid inspection on the board's side costs a fee, and the fee buys a report the board owns.
Who the free inspector works for
Storm-restoration companies run whole departments that knock doors after hail. The free inspection is step one of a sales process. Those companies track inspection-to-contract rates the way a dealership tracks closings. (We spent many years on the building-products side of this industry. We sat in the meetings where those numbers went up on the whiteboard.)
The inspector at your door is usually a decent person, hired to sell. Paid by the sale, the inspector finds enough to write an estimate. Scuffs become damage and stains become urgent. The estimate left behind becomes the scope your board reacts to.
So ask the question your board would ask of any other vendor: who pays this inspector, and what are they paid to produce?
Where your board pays for it
The invoice for a free inspection shows up in places boards rarely connect back to it.
- The scope belongs to the seller. The free report turns into the project definition, written by the party that profits when it grows. Every bid that follows prices the seller's scope. A scope your board owns puts that right.
- The claim decision gets made for you. A free inspection that ends with "Call your carrier" has already steered an insurance decision. A claim involves your deductible, your policy structure, your claims history, and what the damage actually is, and there is no rush to make one. Document the damage first, then decide, on your board's timeline.
- The record follows the project. Somewhere down the road an owner or an attorney asks who documented the damage. If the answer on file is "The contractor who won the work," the record is weak when the board needs it.
What the fee buys
When your board pays for the inspection, you get a report and nothing else is for sale. The inspector is finished when the findings are right. An Action Plan gives you field conditions, photographed and location-referenced, in a format built to hold up when someone outside your board reads it.
The scope belongs to your board, and every bid competes against your document instead of the seller's. If a claim question comes, it gets decided on evidence. The same principle runs through our whole practice: the fee is agreed up front and stays the same whichever contractor your board selects.
What to do with the next free offer
You do not have to turn the free inspector away. If a free report lands in your board packet, keep it. Read it as one seller's opening position, then get an inspection that answers to your board. The Minnesota Attorney General's Disaster Information page (Opens in a new tab) is worth ten minutes at your next meeting, it covers door-to-door repair solicitation and how to check out a contractor before anyone signs.
Have one of those reports on the table right now? Send it over. We will read it next to the roof it describes and tell you, finding by finding, what holds up. 612-440-8660.
Have your own record before the trucks arrive. That record costs a fee.
We assist associations through the insurance claims process. The Storm Damage Report →