Filing a claim is not free. It goes on your claims history, it can change your renewal terms, and a denied claim leaves you with all of that and nothing to show for it. So it is worth spending twenty minutes deciding properly rather than filing because someone knocked on your door.
Here are the seven questions that actually determine the answer, roughly in the order they matter.
The short version
You have a claim worth filing when all three of these are true:
- Hail of a damaging size genuinely reached your address, on a date you can name.
- The damage is impact damage, not age, blistering or wear.
- The repair clearly exceeds your wind and hail deductible — which is often much larger than your regular one.
If any of the three is shaky, the honest answer is usually to wait, document, and get a second opinion rather than file.
1. Did hail genuinely reach your address?
Not your city — your address. Hail falls in narrow paths a few miles wide. It is completely normal for one neighborhood to be destroyed and the next one over to be untouched, and "we had a big storm last month" is not the same claim as "hail fell on this house."
This is checkable. Weather radar estimates hail size across the whole country, and the record goes back years. If the radar shows nothing over your area on the date you have in mind, that is important to know before you file, not after — because the adjuster is going to run the same check.
One caveat, and we would rather say it than have you hear it from an adjuster: radar estimates are estimates. They are typically accurate to within about a quarter of an inch, which is plenty to answer "did a real storm hit my area" and nowhere near enough to prove a claim on its own. Radar tells you whether it is worth looking. Your roof tells you what happened.
The two useful outcomes from a radar check are:
- Nothing on that date — either your date is wrong, or there is no claim here. Both are worth knowing.
- A confirmed event of a damaging size — now you have a date of loss you can defend, which is the single most valuable thing you can bring to a claim.
2. Is the damage actually from impact?
Work through what hail damage looks like on a roof before anything else. The most common reason a hail claim gets denied is that the "damage" is blistering, thermal cracking, foot traffic or ordinary aging — and an adjuster recognizes each of those in seconds.
The fastest homeowner version: walk the property and look at the soft metal. Gutters, window screens, the aluminum fins on your outdoor AC unit, vents and flashing. Hail big enough to bruise shingles almost always dents soft metal first. No dents anywhere on the property is a strong signal that there is no roof claim, and it is a lot cheaper to learn that from your own gutters than from a denial letter.
3. Is the damage worth more than your deductible?
This is where most marginal claims die, and where most homeowners are surprised.
Find your wind and hail deductible on your declarations page. On many storm-exposed policies it is not a flat dollar figure but a percentage of the dwelling coverage — commonly 1% or 2%, and sometimes 5% in heavy hail states.
| Dwelling coverage | 1% deductible | 2% deductible | 5% deductible |
|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | $2,500 | $5,000 | $12,500 |
| $400,000 | $4,000 | $8,000 | $20,000 |
| $600,000 | $6,000 | $12,000 | $30,000 |
That is a very different decision from a $1,000 flat deductible. If a roofer tells you the repair is $6,000 and your deductible is $8,000, there is no claim to make — you would be filing a claim to receive nothing.
A contractor who encourages you to file anyway, or offers to "cover," "waive," "absorb" or "eat" your deductible, is proposing insurance fraud. It is explicitly illegal in many states, it can void your claim, and it exposes you personally rather than just them. Walk away from that conversation, and read how to choose a roofer after a hailstorm before you talk to the next one.
4. Will you be paid replacement cost or actual cash value?
Two claims on identical roofs can pay wildly different amounts depending on one line in your policy.
- Replacement Cost Value (RCV) pays what it costs to replace the roof today. You typically receive it in two payments — an initial check, then the withheld depreciation once the work is finished.
- Actual Cash Value (ACV) pays replacement cost minus depreciation, and that is the end of it. On a twenty-year-old roof, depreciation can be most of the value.
Many policies quietly move older roofs onto ACV, or onto a roof payment schedule that reduces the payout by age. Check your declarations page for wording about roof settlement, roof surfaces, or a payment schedule. Our breakdown of ACV vs RCV on a roof claim explains the mechanics in full.
Why this decides whether you file: on an ACV policy with an old roof and a percentage deductible, the math frequently lands below zero. The damage is real, the claim is valid, and the payout is still nothing.
5. Does your policy exclude cosmetic damage?
Some policies — particularly on metal roofs — exclude damage that does not affect the roof's function. Hail dents a metal panel without making it leak, so under a cosmetic exclusion that dent is simply not covered.
This shows up as a "cosmetic damage exclusion" or a "cosmetic damage endorsement" on the declarations page. If you have a metal roof and hail visibly dented it, find this line before you do anything else.
6. When did it happen, and are you still in time?
Two separate clocks:
- Prompt notice. Almost every policy requires you to report a loss promptly after you discover it. Sitting on known damage for a year is grounds for a denial on its own, independent of whether the damage is real.
- Your state's filing deadline. Commonly one to two years from the date of loss, but it varies by state and by policy, and some states have shortened it in recent years. Your policy and your state's rules govern.
Damage from three storms ago that you never noticed is a much harder claim than damage from last month — not because the damage changed, but because proving which storm caused it gets nearly impossible, and weathered damage starts to look like wear.
7. What does filing actually cost you?
Be honest about the downside, because it is real but often overstated:
- A weather claim is not an at-fault claim. Many carriers do not surcharge for a single hail loss the way they would for liability.
- Renewal terms can change. The more common consequence is a higher wind and hail deductible next year, a shift to ACV on the roof, or — after multiple claims in a short window — non-renewal.
- Claims are recorded in an industry loss-history database that other carriers can see when you shop. A denied claim still appears there.
- Your time. A straightforward claim is still several hours of phone calls, documents and scheduling.
None of this is a reason not to file a good claim. It is a reason not to file a speculative one.
What filing actually looks like
If you have worked through the seven questions and the answer is yes:
- Document before you call. Photos of everything, wide and close, and the storm date written down.
- Call your insurer and report the loss. You do not need a contractor's estimate to open a claim, and you are not obligated to use anyone your insurer suggests.
- An adjuster inspects. They will get on the roof, mark test squares and count impacts per square. Here is exactly what they are looking for.
- You receive a scope and an estimate. This is a document you are allowed to disagree with, and disagreeing is routine.
- Work gets done, and often a second check follows — the recoverable depreciation, released once the work is complete and invoiced. Many homeowners never collect it.
For how long each of those stages actually takes, see how long a hail roof claim takes.
Getting a second opinion before you file
It is entirely reasonable to have a roofer look before you file, and a good one will tell you when you do not have a claim — because their reputation in your neighborhood is worth more than one job.
What you want is someone local, licensed and insured, who will put their assessment in writing. What you do not want is whoever knocks first.
A useful test: ask them directly what they found that is not hail damage. Any competent inspector will have noticed blistering, old repairs, or wear. Someone who says everything on your roof is storm damage either did not look or is not telling you what they saw.
Check your own address first
Before you call anyone, find out whether hail actually reached your area and how big it was. Our free hail tracker reads the same NOAA radar record the industry uses, and it takes one address and about ten seconds.
If the radar shows a real storm over your house, you can ask us to pass your details to one vetted local roofer for a free inspection. That is your choice and a separate box — we do not share your name, address or phone with anyone unless you tick it.