Built by an attorney who reads the fine print for a living
I'm Dan Swenson, a Minnesota attorney. My job is reading documents most people understandably never read — statutes, insurance policies, endorsements, the clause on page 41 that quietly cuts your lawsuit deadline in half. I built MN Hail Buddy because the facts that decide a Minnesota hail claim are sitting in public records, free, and almost nobody knows how to get at them.
Whether hail hit your house is in NOAA's radar archives. Whether your contractor is licensed is in the Department of Labor and Industry's nightly file. Whether "we'll cover your deductible" is legal is in Minnesota Statutes section 325E.66 (it isn't). None of that should require buying a $40 hail report or trusting the guy knocking on your door. So this site pulls the public data and explains the law in plain English, with the statute cited on every claim so you can check my work.
That last part is the attorney habit that runs the whole site: every factual statement traces to a source you can open yourself.Hail events link to NOAA data. License statuses come straight from the state's file, refreshed nightly, with the date shown. Legal guides cite chapter and section, not "experts say." Where radar can't prove something — and it can't prove damage on your specific shingles — the site says so in plain sight rather than fine print.
Where the data comes from
- Hail history:NOAA's Severe Weather Data Inventory (radar hail signatures since 2011) and MRMS MESH (maximum estimated hail size), the same radar products insurers and meteorologists use. Refreshed automatically after every storm.
- Contractor licenses:the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry's public license export, downloaded nightly, plus building permit records from city open-data portals.
- The law:Minnesota Statutes, cited by section and linked to the official revisor's office text. The rights guides were written and statute-checked by me, then re-read the way opposing counsel would read them.
What this site is not
MN Hail Buddy is not a law firm and I'm not your lawyer — reading this site doesn't create an attorney-client relationship, and the guides are education, not legal advice about your claim. The site is also not an insurance company, not a contractor, and not affiliated with the State of Minnesota or NOAA.
The site is free for homeowners and always will be. If you ask to be connected with a licensed contractor for an inspection, we may be compensated for that referral — that's disclosed on the form, in the privacy policy, and now here. What we will never do: sell your lookup history (we don't keep it), let a contractor pay to look more licensed than the state's file says, or soften the honest answer to make a lead form convert better.
Spotted an error?
Detail-oriented is a promise, not a boast. If a date, dollar figure, statute cite, or license status on this site doesn't match the official source it links to, I want to know: daniel.c.swenson@gmail.com. Corrections ship fast here.