What you do in the next 48 hours decides how much of your lightning damage you actually recover.
Whether lightning started a fire in your attic, ignited your garage, or sent a surge through every electrical system in your home, the damage is almost always far more extensive than what your insurance company will tell you. Before anyone starts work, before you sign anything else, and before you accept any number from your insurer, talk to a licensed public adjuster who works only for you.
We answer the phone seven days a week. We will come to your Houston home today if you need us.
Talk to a licensed Texas public adjuster immediately.
Call us now, send us a photo of your damage, or leave your number below and we will call you back immediately.
TX Entity License
1924788
Google Rating
4.9 / 5.0
Recovered
$500M+
Experience
16 Years
BBB Awards
6 Consecutive
Time-sensitive: Texas law imposes strict deadlines on insurance claims. Evidence deteriorates daily. The sooner you act, the stronger your case.
We negotiate with every major carrier and win
Wherever you are in this process right now, read this before the next step.
A lot of homeowners reading this have already had a restoration company show up at the door. Some have already signed paperwork. Some have already gotten a number from their insurance company. None of that locks in the outcome of your claim, as long as you pause before the next step.
Before any restoration crew starts physical work in your home, call us.
Before any contents get cleaned, removed, or hauled away, call us.
Before you accept or sign off on any settlement number from your insurance company, call us.
Before you throw away or move any damaged items, call us.
If you have already signed a contract with a restoration company, that is okay. We will review what you signed and tell you exactly where you stand. The single most important thing right now is that documentation of the full damage happens before work begins, because once cleaning and repair work starts, the evidence of what was actually lost is permanently changed.
What happened to your home?
Which of these describes your situation?
My home had a fire, attic fire, garage fire, or significant smoke damage from the strike.
The fire department responded. There is visible fire or smoke damage. You may be facing a major claim and you already have a bad feeling that the number your insurance company gives you is not going to reflect what this actually cost you.
Lightning struck my home or near it. No major fire, but I have damaged appliances, electrical problems, or things that stopped working.
The house looks mostly intact from the outside. But things are not right. Appliances stopped working. The breakers tripped. You are not sure how much of this your insurance company is responsible for and you are worried about what you might be missing.
If lightning caused fire or smoke damage to your home
What you are staring at is a bigger claim than anyone has told you yet.
A lightning-caused fire is not a single event with a single category of damage. It is three separate categories of loss happening simultaneously, and your insurance company is trained to see only one of them clearly.
The first category is the direct fire damage. The burned structure. The obvious destruction. This is what the insurance company's estimate gets built around.
The second category is smoke and soot contamination throughout the entire home. Smoke from a fire that starts in a hidden space like an attic cavity or inside a wall does not stay where the fire was. It moves through every wall cavity, every ceiling penetration, every duct in your HVAC system, and into every room in the house, including rooms that show absolutely no visible damage. The toxic compounds released when modern building materials burn, including synthetic fabrics, plastics, PVC, and treated wood, are microscopic and they penetrate deep into every porous surface throughout the entire structure. Your furniture. Your clothing. Your bedding. Your carpeting. In rooms that look completely fine. Deodorizing those items is not the same as making them safe. No restoration contractor guarantees a specific level of chemical cleanliness after treatment.
The third category is the underlying lightning damage to every electrical system in the home that preceded the fire. Before your house caught fire, a massive electrical surge traveled through your wiring inside the walls, your electrical panel, your HVAC system, and every connected device in the home. Insurance company adjusters scoping fire claims routinely ignore this category because they are focused on what burned. But the surge damage that caused the fire is a separate covered loss, and without someone specifically documenting and advocating for it, it does not get paid.
The gap between what an insurance company scopes as the damage on a lightning-caused fire claim and what the actual covered loss is can be enormous. Here is documented proof from a Houston homeowner who lived this exact situation.
"I had other people come out and look at it and said you only have fifty thousand dollars in damage. This claim is going to be over three hundred and twenty thousand dollars when it is all said and done. I had no headaches. They handled all the paperwork. They handled all of that. I could not be more pleased with Crossroads."
That is more than six times what she was told her claim was worth. Not because Crossroads found a loophole. Because Crossroads documented what was actually there, all of it. The smoke that had moved through the entire structure. The contents throughout the home that should have been replacement claims rather than cleaning claims. And every covered loss that the insurance company's estimate would have left on the table.
Crossroads is paid a percentage of the total settlement we negotiate for you. Every dollar we find that you are owed increases what both you and Crossroads recover. That is not a coincidence. It is the financial structure that makes a public adjuster different from everyone else in this process.
Standing in your damage right now? Send us a photo.
Snap a photo or short video of what you are looking at and text it to the number below. A licensed Texas public adjuster will look at it and immediately call you back to tell you what we think your claim is actually worth. No obligation. No sales pitch. Just a real opinion from someone who has handled hundreds of Houston lightning claims.
Text or call: 713-369-4300Another Houston homeowner. Another lightning fire. Another claim that would have been a fraction of what Crossroads recovered.
"Why do you need a public adjuster if you have a good insurance company? Well, you really do. The knowledge of the fire and the structural damage caused from the smoke was more than anything else that anybody ever would have told us. The insurance company paid everything that Crossroads asked for. It takes the stress out of having a stressful fire to begin with."
Georgia did not think she needed a public adjuster. She had a good insurance company. The damage did not look catastrophic from inside her home. What Crossroads found was that smoke from an attic fire had moved through her entire structure in ways that were invisible without opening walls and testing systems. If she had relied on her insurance company alone, the vast majority of that covered loss would never have been documented or paid.
Having a good insurance company means they will honor a well-documented claim. It does not mean their adjuster will build that documentation for you.
What they don't tell you
What lightning-caused fire and smoke claims consistently miss
The full scope of smoke contamination throughout the structure
Insurance adjusters limit smoke remediation estimates to visible surfaces and obviously affected rooms. Smoke from a lightning-caused attic or wall fire travels through the entire structure through pathways that require opening walls, testing HVAC systems, and air quality assessment to fully document. What your insurer scopes as a targeted cleaning job may actually require complete remediation of the entire home. The difference in cost is not small.
Contents that should be replaced, not cleaned
Your insurance company is not going to build a thorough contents inventory that maximizes your recovery. They document obvious total losses and turn everything else into cleaning line items. Items that cannot genuinely be restored to their pre-loss condition should be replacement claims. Once cleaning money gets spent, the argument that an item should have been replaced becomes significantly harder to make and in some cases impossible. This is one of the single largest areas where Crossroads clients recover money the insurance company never put in the original offer.
Code upgrade costs
Repairs to a fire-damaged home must meet current building codes. That frequently requires upgrading electrical systems, framing, insulation, and other elements beyond simply replacing what was destroyed. The difference in cost between repairing to original condition and repairing to current code can be substantial. Insurance company estimates routinely exclude this and most homeowners do not know to ask for it.
The electrical damage that caused the fire in the first place
Before the fire started, a massive electrical surge traveled through every system in your home. That surge is a covered event separate from the fire itself. Wiring inside walls, your electrical panel, your HVAC system, every appliance and connected device in the home were all potentially damaged in the same event that started the fire. Without someone specifically documenting and advocating for this component of your claim, the insurance company will not include it.
What happens when the insurance company controls the sequence of events
Insurance companies encourage homeowners to let their preferred vendors begin work immediately, often telling you everything will be covered. What they do not tell you is that once cleaning begins, money gets spent, and money spent on cleaning cannot later be used to replace items. Once work starts on your home, evidence of damage is permanently altered. The insurance company controls the sequence of events in a way that benefits them. Crossroads controls the sequence in a way that benefits you by documenting everything before a single dollar of your claim gets spent.
Know who is on your side
Three different parties will show up after a lightning loss. Only one of them works for you.
| Insurance Company Adjuster | Restoration Contractor | Public Adjuster (Crossroads) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who they work for | The insurance company. | Their own company. | You. The homeowner. |
| Who pays them | The insurance company. | Paid out of your insurance proceeds, often through assignment of benefits agreements. | A percentage of the total settlement we negotiate for you. |
| Whose financial interest they protect | The insurance company's. Less paid to you means more profit for them. | Their own. Their incentive is to maximize the work they bill, which may or may not align with maximizing your recovery. | Yours. Our fee comes out of your total recovery, so the more we recover for you, the better we both do. |
| What they document | What they can see at the time of their inspection. | What they were hired to clean or repair. | The full scope of every covered loss in your home, including hidden damage, smoke contamination, code upgrades, and surge damage. |
| Licensed to represent you | No. They represent the insurer. | No. Restoration contractors are not licensed to negotiate insurance claims on your behalf. | Yes. Texas Public Adjuster Entity License 1924788. |
Public Adjuster (Crossroads)
Insurance Company Adjuster
Restoration Contractor
If lightning caused electrical damage with no major fire
Your house looks intact. That does not mean your claim is small, and it does not mean you are safe.
This is the scenario where Houston homeowners lose the most money relative to what they are entitled to, because the assumption that no visible fire means a manageable claim is almost always wrong.
When lightning strikes your home or very close to it, a surge of electrical energy travels through every conductive pathway in your home simultaneously. Your wiring inside the walls. Your electrical panel. Your HVAC system including the compressor, air handler, and control board. Your pool equipment. Every appliance that was connected. Every smart home device, security system, thermostat, and piece of electronics in the house. Including devices that were switched off but not unplugged, because standby circuits remain connected to the surge even when the power button is off.
Here is what makes this scenario particularly costly. The failures are frequently delayed. An HVAC compressor that runs for six weeks and then dies on the first genuinely hot Houston summer day is still a lightning damage claim. A refrigerator that seems fine and fails a month later is still a lightning damage claim. Wiring inside your walls that shows no immediate failure but has compromised insulation creating a fire hazard months from now is still a lightning damage claim. And it is not a theoretical fire hazard. Damaged wiring insulation from a lightning surge creates real conditions for fire inside your walls that can manifest long after the original event.
Your insurance company will send their adjuster within days of the strike. They will document what is obviously not working at that moment. They will write a settlement figure based on that snapshot. When you call six weeks later because your HVAC failed, they will argue that the failure is unrelated to the original event. Once your claim is closed, proving causation for delayed failures is a very difficult and frequently losing battle. The only protection against that outcome is thorough documentation of every system in your home before the claim is settled.
Houston is one of the most lightning-exposed regions in the country
Texas led every state in the nation with 47 million lightning events in 2025, more than any other state and the highest count in eight years. The greater Houston metro area sits at the heart of that activity. In 2024, Walker County, just north of Houston, recorded the highest lightning density of any county in the United States. San Jacinto County, also in the Houston metro, recorded the most cloud-to-ground lightning strikes per square mile of any county in the country. (Source: Vaisala Xweather Annual Lightning Reports, 2024 and 2025.)
If you live in greater Houston, your home sits inside one of the highest-risk lightning zones in America. The volume of property damage being filed and underpaid here every year is enormous.
Hidden damage
What lightning electrical damage claims consistently miss
Wiring inside your walls
A lightning surge damages the insulation on wiring inside walls in ways that do not cause immediate failure but create fire hazard conditions that persist for months or years. This damage requires a licensed electrician testing the system to identify. Your insurance company's adjuster will not pull your walls open to find it. And if it is not found and documented before your claim is settled, it will not be paid.
Your HVAC system
HVAC systems are among the most expensive items a lightning strike damages and among the most aggressively disputed by insurance companies. A compressor or control board that appears functional after the strike may fail completely weeks later when running under load during a Houston summer. Insurers argue that delayed failure is unrelated to the original event. Documentation establishing the connection at the time of the loss is the only effective defense against that argument.
Every appliance and connected device in the home
Internal component degradation from a surge manifests as failure weeks or months after the event with no obvious visible connection to the original strike. Your washing machine, dishwasher, refrigerator, smart home systems, security systems, and garage door openers are all potentially damaged even when they appear to work initially. Every item that fails after your claim is settled is money you will not recover.
Your electrical panel
Breakers that trip during a strike may reset and appear normal while the panel components themselves have sustained damage that compromises their ability to protect your home from future faults. A panel damaged by lightning but appearing functional is a safety risk and a covered replacement claim. It will not appear in your insurance company's estimate unless someone specifically advocates for it.
How insurance companies dispute electrical damage claims
The standard playbook is to argue causation. Your insurer will claim that damaged appliances failed due to age, prior power quality issues, or manufacturing defects rather than the lightning event. They will argue that a near-miss strike cannot be proven to have caused the surge. They will argue that delayed failures are unrelated to the original storm. These arguments are most effective against claimants who have no contemporaneous documentation linking the damage to the event. Crossroads establishes that documentation before your claim is settled, while the evidence still exists in its original condition.
The same firm Houston homeowners trust for major fire claims handles surge claims with the same playbook
Crossroads has handled lightning losses across greater Houston for 16 years, including the case where one client was told her claim was worth $50,000 and we recovered over $320,000. The same documentation discipline that produces results like that on fire claims is what protects your recovery on a surge claim, where the damage is less visible but the insurance company's underpayment is just as predictable.
Don't take our word for it
$500,000,000+
Recovered for our clients since 2010.
Sixteen years of fighting one side of the table only. Hundreds of Houston homeowners. Every dollar of that figure represents a covered loss the insurance company would not have paid without a licensed public adjuster sitting on the other side of the negotiation.
Our process
What Crossroads does from the moment you contact us
Everything you just read happens because nobody on your side was in the room when the documentation got done.
That is what Crossroads changes.
From the moment you bring us in, we come to your property before any work begins, before the insurance company's adjuster establishes their version of events, and before any contractor touches anything. We document the full scope of the loss at the moment it exists in its most complete and provable form.
For fire and smoke claims, we assess smoke contamination throughout the entire structure, not just in the visibly affected rooms. We build a complete contents inventory identifying every item that is a legitimate replacement claim rather than a cleaning claim. We document every code upgrade cost. We test and document every electrical system affected by the surge that caused the fire. We establish the full scope of the covered loss before a single dollar of your claim gets spent on anything.
For electrical damage claims without fire, we coordinate with licensed electricians to test every system in your home through proper inspection rather than visual assessment. We document every appliance and connected device and establish their condition relative to the lightning event. We create the record that protects your ability to claim delayed failures before they are disputed as unrelated.
We manage every communication with your insurance company. We review every line of their estimate and push back on anything that does not reflect the true cost of your loss. We keep every contractor, every vendor, and every party in the process accountable to your interests rather than their own.
How we are paid, and why that matters
Crossroads is paid a percentage of the total settlement we negotiate for you. Because our fee comes directly out of your total recovery, our financial interest in maximizing every covered dollar of your claim is identical to yours. The more complete and accurate your claim, the better the outcome for both of us.
Under Texas Insurance Code Section 4102.111, a licensed Texas public adjuster holds claim proceeds in a fiduciary capacity for the insured. The insurance company's adjuster has the opposite legal alignment. They work for the insurance company. Their job is to settle your claim for as little as the policy allows. Understanding that dynamic is the foundation of everything we do for you.
Our team is available seven days a week. We will come to your property today if you need us. We will walk the loss with you and tell you exactly what we see and what we think you are owed. That conversation costs you nothing. But it could change everything about what comes next.
Our credentials
Verify our license at the Texas Department of Insurance
Steps to take right now to protect your claim
- 1
Before any restoration crew begins physical work in your home, call Crossroads. Once work starts, evidence of damage is permanently altered and your ability to claim it is compromised.
- 2
If a restoration company has approached you with paperwork or you have already signed something, call us before they begin work. We will review the contract and tell you exactly where you stand. Many situations can still be paused or addressed before the outcome is locked in.
- 3
If there was fire or smoke, do not allow any contents to be cleaned, removed, or hauled away until they have been fully inventoried and assessed. Once cleaning money is spent on an item, replacing it becomes significantly harder to argue and often impossible.
- 4
Document everything you can see with photos and video before anything is moved or touched. Photograph every room, including rooms that appear completely undamaged.
- 5
If you have electrical damage with no fire, do not assume the claim is limited to what stopped working immediately. Contact us before your claim is settled. Delayed failures need to be connected to the original event while the documentation still exists.
- 6
Before you accept or sign any settlement offer from your insurance company, call us. Once a settlement is signed, recovering additional amounts is extremely difficult.
Leadership
Built by a father-son team. Run by licensed adjusters who answer the phone themselves.
Crossroads is a father-son public adjusting firm founded by Dale Terry and John Terry. Decades of combined public adjusting experience. The latest documentation and claim-management technology. A trained team of licensed Texas adjusters who handle every claim end to end.
I have spent my whole life in and around the claims industry and have been a licensed public adjuster for almost a decade. At Crossroads, we combine that experience with the documentation technology and trained staff it takes to recover what insurance companies will not pay without a fight. Every adjuster on our team is licensed by Texas. We pride ourselves in treating every one of our clients like they're part of the Crossroads Family.
I have spent more than three decades in the property claims industry. I have worked major residential and commercial losses across 20 or more hurricane events and 30 or more flood events. As an early partner and longtime leader at Crossroads, I also serve as President and Elected Commissioner of Harris-Fort Bend Emergency Services District No. 100. Every claim I have worked has reinforced the same lesson: the insurance company will honor a well-documented claim, but they will never build that documentation for you. That is what we do.
Verified reviews
What Houston homeowners say after working with us
Reviews from our Google Business Profile.
wes wilder
"Dale showed up at my house a day after lightning hit my roof. I was super hesitant (as with most people who show up at my door) but I’m glad I listened to him. Crossroads helped with pretty much everything from removing all the stuff from our house to going back and forth with State Farm on what they’d be fixing and how they’d be fixing it. Crossroads got them to come up about $50k from the original repair estimate. I’d recommend crossroads to anyone who’s had damage to their house and needs a 2nd set of eyes on the insurance company."
Stephen Peters
"Maddie and Dale and the entire team at Crossroads were awesome to work with during our house fire. They made the complex process simple and easy to understand in a time of uncertainty. They were Always easy to access for questions and kept us updated as the process transpired. We could not recommend them any higher and are glad to have found them during this trying time."
Rani Duncan
"After suffering a house fire on 4/29/2024, my husband and I were absolutely overwhelmed. What do we do? Where do we begin? Our first encounter with anyone from Crossroads was with Deidra Muchmore. She was a public adjuster and she was a Godsend! When we met her team, Michael Toth and Amy Corner, we again were blessed. We are so thankful we chose Crossroads Insurance Recovery Advocates. These amazing three people were genuine, very professional and so efficient and knowledgeable at what they do. They took care of everything. Michael dealt with our insurance adjuster for our structure loss with endless emails and phone calls, getting us what we needed to rebuild. Amy carefully and thoroughly documented all of our house contents with no stone left unturned. My husband and I cannot say enough about what these good people did for us through such a devastating ordeal. It is so worth having Crossroads advocate for you! Mark & Rani"
Larry King
"We were unfortunately hit by a tornado 10/31/2015 and it kept raining after our roof was ripped off so naturally a total loss on 90% of our contents and structure . After talking with an employee from Crossroads for a long time in my driveway we agreed to let them handle our contents claim. This has to be one of the best decisions I have made as a homeowner they handled everything from cradle to grave. My advice to anyone who has been effected by any diaster make Crossroads you first call they will not steer you wrong"
Loay Almalaieka
"A Lifeline When I Needed It Most After Hurricane Beryl tore through my home, I found myself overwhelmed, with no understanding of the insurance process or even what a public adjuster was. It was during that moment, when everything seemed uncertain, that Dale Terry, then CEO of Crossroads, and his son John Terry, now CEO, approached me. They did not pressure, scare, or oversell. Instead, they calmly explained what they do, how they could help, and most importantly, why I could trust them. Crossroads is that rare kind of company, large enough to deliver professional results, but still a tight-knit, family business where you can speak directly to the founders. In a crisis, that kind of access is invaluable. Once I signed, they assigned Al Alfredo to my case, a senior technical expert who not only knew every detail of the claims and construction world, but also took the time to walk me through it with clarity and patience. But what truly sets Crossroads apart is their character. Every single person I dealt with operated with integrity and compassion. Maddie Ludwig, who managed the financial aspects of my account, was consistently honest, responsive, and efficient. There was never a moment I felt left in the dark. In one of the hardest chapters of my life, Crossroads brought not just professionalism, but dignity and humanity. I’m grateful beyond words."
Todd Martin
"My claim with USAA was a disaster. USAA was playing the ignore me until I went away routine. Out of desperation, I went to Crossroads. It is the best decision I have made in a while. John Terry and crew took over and exceeded my expectations. USAA picked a fight they couldn't win. I wouldn't think about going back if I had a problem."
Three steps
What happens after you reach out.
Step 1
You call us, text us a photo, or fill out the form.
Takes 60 seconds. A licensed Texas public adjuster takes the call or responds immediately.
Step 2
We come out to your home within 24 hours and begin the documentation process.
Free. No obligation. We walk the loss with you, look at what your insurance company is going to miss, and start building the record that protects every dollar of your covered loss.
Step 3
We get you every dollar you are owed.
We negotiate every line of your claim with the insurance company, push back on every underpayment, and do not stop until your settlement reflects the full value of what you actually lost.
Common questions
The four questions homeowners ask before calling us.
Free claim review
Talk to a licensed Crossroads adjuster today
Fill out the form below and a licensed Texas public adjuster will call you back immediately. No cost. No obligation. No pressure. If you would rather talk now, call 713-369-4300. If you are standing in your damage, text us a photo and we will call you back immediately.
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