Both will knock on your door after a storm. Only one of them will still be here for the warranty call.
After a hailstorm, two kinds of roofers work your street: local companies who live with their reputation, and traveling crews who follow storm paths. Some traveling crews do decent work - but when they leave, your warranty leaves with them. Here is how to tell which is which in about ten minutes, before you sign anything.
1. The address test (2 minutes). Ask for their office address and look it up on a map. A local roofer has a real local office or yard you could drive past. A storm chaser usually lists a hotel, a PO box, a rented mailbox, or a house they "just moved into." If the address is out of state, you have your answer.
2. The license lookup (2 minutes). Most states and many cities license or register roofing contractors - search the business name on your state licensing board's site. A local company's license is years old. A storm chaser often shows a brand-new registration, a license in someone else's name, or none at all.
3. The insurance call (3 minutes). Ask for their liability and workers' compensation certificates, then call the insurance agency named on the certificate to confirm it is current. Honest contractors expect this call. Chasers stall, or send a PDF that turns out to be expired.
4. The review history (2 minutes). Look at their reviews and sort by oldest. A local roofer has reviews going back years, from before your storm. A storm chaser's profile is often weeks old, or has a burst of generic five-star reviews all from the last month.
5. The supplier test (1 minute). Ask which local supply house they buy from, then call that supplier and ask if the company has an account in good standing. Local roofers have real accounts. Traveling crews usually pay cash per pallet - suppliers will tell you (politely) that they don't really know them.
6. The contract test (read before signing). A local roofer's contract names materials, dates, payment stages and warranty terms, and gives you time to think. The chaser's paperwork pushes you to sign today, sometimes with language that hands them rights to your insurance claim. Never sign anything that assigns your claim or its payment to a contractor.
That is exactly when to slow down. After a catastrophe, legitimate contractors - local and traveling - are all booked out for weeks. A crew that can start immediately after a major storm is a crew nobody else hired. The exception: big, established companies sometimes send genuine catastrophe-response teams. Those teams still pass all six checks above - real license, real insurance, reviews that predate your storm, and staged payments.
You don't have to choose a full contractor today. Pay for the emergency work only - tarping or temporary sealing - as a standalone job with its own invoice, then take a week to compare full-repair estimates. Emergency tarping commonly runs $150-$3,300 depending on the damaged area (see our tarping guide for what drives the price), and is often reimbursable by insurance. Anyone who insists the tarp job requires signing the full replacement contract is telling you who they are.
More detail on the pressure tactics: storm chasers: 9 red flags.