Why St. Louis has so many roofing companies
222 rated roofing contractors in three counties is a strange density until you look at the weather record. Then it stops being strange and starts being arithmetic.
The hail record, and how to read it honestly
Over the six seasons from 2020 to 2025, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's storm database logged 125 hail reports in St. Louis County, with a maximum recorded stone of two and a half inches and an average of 1.32 inches. St. Charles County logged 54 over the same period, Jefferson County 44 and Franklin County 30.
| County | Logged reports | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| St. Louis County | 125 | Max recorded stone two and a half inches, average 1.32 inches |
| St. Charles County | 54 | Fast growing population, so reporting density is rising |
| Jefferson County | 44 | Lower population, likely under-reported relative to actual events |
| Franklin County | 30 | Largely rural, fewest observers |
Now the caveat that most pages using these numbers leave out. These are counts of logged reports, not counts of storms and definitely not counts of insured losses. A hail report exists because a human being reported it, so reporting density tracks population density. St. Louis County does not necessarily get more hail than Franklin County. It has vastly more people standing outside looking at it, and that alone would produce a higher count.
Seasonality is sharper here than people expect
April and May together carry roughly 56 percent of the metro's annual hail reports, according to the Storm Prediction Center climatology for the local forecast office. That concentration is why the roofing market here behaves like a seasonal industry with a two month peak, why crews are hardest to book in late spring, and why a company can plausibly appear in March and vanish by September.
The 2025 season, and the numbers worth citing
- 253,241 catastrophic claims from the 2025 seasonWith more than $2.9 billion paid and roughly 83 percent of it residential, per the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance.
- The May 16 2025 St. Louis tornadoRated EF3 at 152 mph by the National Weather Service. It began near Clayton at 2:41 in the afternoon, tracked 22.6 miles, and reached a maximum width of 1.8 miles, the widest recorded in the region in a record that begins in 1950. Five people died. Damage has been put at $1.6 billion by the National Centers for Environmental Information.
- Federal disaster declaration DR-4877-MOCovering St. Louis City and County, with 9,427 individual assistance approvals, $58.13 million in individuals and households programme funds and $105.01 million in public assistance.
- Two separate national rankings, which are not the same thingThe Insurance Information Institute, citing the Storm Prediction Center, put Missouri fifth nationally for major hail events in 2025 at 253. State Farm separately ranked Missouri second among states for hail claim dollars paid. One counts events, the other counts money. They are frequently merged into a single sentence and should not be.
What that does to the supply of roofers
A metro with a two month damage season, a quarter of a million catastrophic claims in a single year and a federal declaration in the middle of it will attract capacity from outside. Some of that capacity is permanent and local, some arrives for a season and leaves, and the ledger on this site cannot tell you which is which by looking at a review count.
What the ledger can tell you is who has been here long enough to accumulate a body of public feedback. In a market shaped like this one, longevity is not a proxy for quality, but it is a decent proxy for the company still existing when you need to call about a leak. That is a lower bar than most rankings claim to clear and it is an honest one.
The consequence for how you buy
Density is good news, actually. Two hundred and twenty two rated companies means three quotes are easy to obtain and comparison is genuinely available to you. The failure mode in this market is not lack of choice, it is deciding in a hurry during the eight weeks of the year when everybody is deciding in a hurry.
Where every number on this page came from
Hail counts: NOAA storm events database, county level, seasons 2020 to 2025. Seasonality: Storm Prediction Center climatology for the St. Louis forecast office. Claims and dollars: Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance. Tornado rating, timing, path length and width: National Weather Service. Damage dollar figure: National Centers for Environmental Information. Federal assistance figures: FEMA, declaration DR-4877-MO. National rankings: Insurance Information Institute citing the Storm Prediction Center, and State Farm, reported separately.
Figures circulating on other roofing sites in this market that do not appear here have been left out deliberately, because the source could not be traced to the body being credited with it.
This is a crowded market and we are in it
Everything above explains why forty companies will answer the phone in the eight weeks after a hailstorm. It does not tell you which one to use, and this form is not an argument that it ought to be us.
It is an offer of the boring version: somebody measures the roof, photographs it, and writes down what is wrong with it. The document is yours.
Straight through to the Keys Roofing office. Roofing, gutters and downspouts across greater St. Louis, and nothing else.
This goes to Keys Roofing. It does not go to anyone in the ranking, and none of the ranked companies pay to be here or receive anything you type.