Guide
Did it hail at your address?
Updated October 29, 2026
A hail claim is decided on two things: whether hail actually fell at your address on your date of loss, and whether the damage looks like hail and not age. Here is how to prove both, in order.
1. Prove the storm first
Before you climb a ladder, establish that hail fell near your property on that date. The records are public: the Storm Prediction Center storm reports list hail by day with size and position, the NCEI Storm Events Database is NOAA's reviewed record, and radar hail appears in the Severe Weather Data Inventory. The work is pulling all three and measuring each report's distance and direction from your address — a report three miles away means more than one twenty miles away.
Our report does this step in about a minute: the hail reports near your address on your date of loss, each with its size, distance and direction, plus ground reports and radar detections side by side. $9.99.
2. Know what size hail damages a roof
Generally, hail needs to be about 1¼ inches (half-dollar size) to damage heavy composite or wood-shake shingles. Lightweight shingles can show damage from 1-inch (quarter-size) hail. Hail under about ¾ inch usually only marks shingles that were already deteriorated.
3. Check the soft metal first
Soft metal does not age the way shingles do, so it is the clearest sign hail reached your property. Look for dents and spatter marks on gutters, downspouts, roof vents, pipe boots, window screens, the AC unit fins, the mailbox and fence caps. These show the hail's size and which way it came from.
4. The test square
Mark a 10 by 10 foot square on each roof slope with chalk and count the hits inside it. A hail hit on a shingle is a bruise: granules knocked off, the spot soft, the mat underneath sometimes cracked. Hits are random; they do not run in lines.
5. Hail, or wear and tear?
| What you see | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| Random soft bruises with the granules gone | Hail |
| Small pits or bubbles with no bruise | Blistering |
| Scuffs or scrapes in a line or pattern | Foot traffic or mechanical damage |
| Even granule loss across the whole slope | Age and wear |
Claim what is hail. Leave the rest alone — photographing the wear too shows the adjuster you can tell the difference.
6. Build the paper trail
Photograph everything before repairs, wide then close, and label each by slope and direction. Keep the claim number, the date of loss, every call and email with the carrier, and the summary you send the adjuster after the visit.
The one step worth paying for
Steps 2 to 6 are yours to do with a camera and chalk. Step 1 — proving the storm — is the tedious, technical one: four NOAA sources, distances and directions, ground reports versus radar. Our report does it in about a minute, in one PDF you can attach to the claim.
Related
- How to get NOAA weather data for an insurance claimStep by step: find storm reports, NOAA Storm Events, station wind measurements, warnings and radar hail for your address and date of loss, all from free public sources.
- How to check the weather on your date of lossWhy the date of loss matters for a weather claim, how to confirm which day the storm hit your address, and what to do when the damage was found days or weeks later.
- How to find the wind speed at an address on a specific dateWind is measured at weather stations, not at every address. How to find the nearest station, read gusts versus sustained wind, and judge how close the measurement is.