A hail storm hits your neighborhood in Colleyville, Grapevine or Keller, and soon after, roofing crews start replacing roofs up and down your street. Your neighbors are getting new roofs through their insurance claims, and you’re wondering why your roof isn’t getting replaced too. Here are 5 myths homeowners believe about hail damage and insurance, and what you can do about your own roof now.
Myth 1: If hail damaged my roof, I’d know by now
Hail damage is usually hard for a homeowner to see from the ground, and a roof with hail damage often doesn’t leak right after a hail storm.
A lot of homeowners I meet connect roof leaks with big wind storms, not with hail. If their shingles are still on, nothing on the roof looks out of place, and there’s no leak inside the house, they figure the hail didn’t do enough damage to matter.
I’ve been on hundreds of roofs across North Texas after storms. On those roofs, hail often knocks the granules off shingles and leaves dents in gutters, roof vents and the metal flashing on a roof. Those are signs of hail damage, but from your driveway, you probably won’t notice them. Missing granules and dented roof vents also won’t show up as a water stain on your ceiling, at least not at first.
Myth 2: My insurance company would have checked my roof too
Your insurance company usually won’t inspect your roof unless you file your own claim. Myth 5 shows what to do if you haven’t filed a claim yet.
Each house has its own insurance policy, and each homeowner files a claim on their own policy. When your neighbor filed a claim, your neighbor’s insurance company sent an adjuster to inspect your neighbor’s roof, not yours. Unless you filed a claim too, chances are nobody from your insurance company has been on your roof since the hail storm.
Before you decide whether to file a claim, a roofer or general contractor can inspect your roof and tell you what hail damage is there. Whether to file a claim is your decision.
Myth 3: The same hail storm does the same damage to every roof
One hail storm can hit houses on the same street differently. Hail comes in different sizes, and strong wind can blow hail into a roof at an angle.
The National Severe Storms Laboratory says hail falls in paths known as hail swaths, and a hail swath can cover just a few acres or an area 10 miles wide and 100 miles long. So one part of a neighborhood can get more hail than another part. The National Severe Storms Laboratory also says that when the wind is strong enough, hail can fall at an angle or even nearly sideways.
Because hail hits unevenly, your roof may have less hail damage than the roof next door, or more. To know how much hail damage your roof has before you decide whether to file a claim, have a contractor get on your roof and inspect it.
Myth 4: If my neighbor got a new roof, I’d get one too
Your insurance policy and your neighbor’s policy can pay very differently after the same hail storm. Your deductible and your roof’s age can both change how much a policy pays.
The Texas Department of Insurance says coverages vary by company, so your policy may not work like your neighbor’s policy. Here are two reasons your result can be different from your neighbor’s:
- Your deductible: your deductible is the amount of a claim that you must pay yourself. If the cost to repair your roof is less than your deductible, your insurance company doesn’t pay anything for the repair.
- Your roof’s age: the Texas Department of Insurance says some policies pay less if the roof is older or showing wear. If your roof is older than your neighbor’s roof, your policy might pay less for your roof than your neighbor’s policy paid for theirs. Some of these policies pay actual cash value, which the department describes as coverage that pays replacement cost minus depreciation. Depreciation is the value your roof has lost to age and wear.
Your neighbor’s new roof doesn’t tell you what your own policy would pay. Your insurance agent can tell you your deductible and whether your policy pays less for an older roof.
Myth 5: It’s too late to file a hail claim now
Some insurance policies give you one year after a hail storm to file a claim. Have a roofer or general contractor inspect your roof before that deadline passes.
The Texas Department of Insurance says some policies have a one-year deadline unless you can show good cause for the delay. In my experience, a one-year deadline that starts on the date of the hail storm is common, and each hail storm starts its own deadline. If the hail storm that hit your neighborhood was a few months ago, you may still have time to file a claim for that storm. Your policy says exactly how long you have to file a claim, and your insurance agent can tell you too.
Here’s who does what if your neighbors got new roofs after a hail storm and you didn’t:
- You: get the date of the hail storm that hit your street. A neighbor who filed a claim after that storm can usually tell you the date. A roofer or general contractor who works in your area may know the date too.
- A roofer or general contractor: inspect your whole roof. The inspection should cover the shingles, gutters, roof vents and flashing, and the contractor should take photos of any hail damage they identify.
- You: check your deductible and your roof coverage. Your policy shows your deductible and whether your policy pays less for an older roof, or your insurance agent can tell you both.
- You: decide whether to file a claim. If you decide to file, the Texas Department of Insurance says to file an insurance claim as soon as you can.
- The insurance company: send an adjuster to inspect your roof after you file. The Texas Department of Insurance says to be available for the adjuster visit, so you can make sure the adjuster sees all of the damage. Your contractor can be there too, to show the adjuster the hail damage they identified.
If the adjuster misses hail damage that your contractor showed them, the Texas Department of Insurance says to talk to your insurance company about any differences between your contractor’s list of hail damage and the insurance company’s estimate.
If you want to see the whole claim process from start to finish, my post Roof Damage After a Hail Storm: The Insurance Claim, Step by Step walks through it. If your claim was already denied, the denied claim section on my homepage covers what comes next. If hail hit your roof in Colleyville, Grapevine, Keller or nearby, call or text me at 817-674-2037.