How to Tell If Your Roof Has Hail Damage (Without Climbing Up There)

Hail damage is frequently invisible from the ground and frequently invisible from the roof to an untrained eye. It is also the most over-claimed and over-sold condition in this industry. Here is how to form a real opinion before anyone knocks on your door.

What hail actually does to a roof

On asphalt shingles, functional hail damage is a bruise: an impact that fractures the mat beneath the surface and dislodges the protective granules. It often looks like a dark circular spot with a slightly soft feel. It is not a hole, and a roof can be functionally failing while looking almost normal from a distance.

The granules matter more than they appear to. They are the shingle’s UV protection. Once they are knocked loose the asphalt beneath degrades quickly, which is why a hail-damaged roof can look acceptable for two years and then fail rapidly.

What you can check from the ground

Soft metal shows hail before shingles do. Walk the property and look at:

• Gutters and downspouts — dents on the top-facing surfaces
• Metal roof vents, turbines and flashing — round dimples
• The air conditioner condenser — its fins bruise easily and are at ground level
• Window screens, mailboxes, grills, garage doors, fence caps
• Downspout outflow — a heavy accumulation of granules where water exits

Some granule loss is normal, particularly on a new roof or a very old one. A sudden accumulation after a storm is the signal, not the presence of granules at all.

Also look at your neighbors. Hail falls in swaths. If three houses on your street have new roofs and yours is the same age, that is worth taking seriously.

What a real inspection involves

A proper inspection means someone on the roof, marking a test square — usually ten feet by ten feet — on each slope and counting impacts within it. Insurance adjusters use that method, and the count per square is what determines whether a slope is approved.

Photographs of each slope, each test square and the soft metal are what turn an opinion into documentation. If a contractor inspects your roof and produces no photographs, they have given you nothing an adjuster can use.

Age changes what damage means

A three-year-old roof with light bruising may be fine. A seventeen-year-old roof with the same bruising is often finished, because it had little service life left and hail removed the margin.

This also affects your claim. Many policies now settle older roofs at actual cash value rather than replacement cost, meaning depreciation comes off the payment and you cover the difference. Knowing which basis your policy uses before you file changes the decision entirely.

On storm chasers

After any significant Front Range hail event, out-of-state crews arrive within days. Some are competent. The pattern to watch for is pressure: an inspection that finds damage in four minutes, a contract presented on the spot, urgency about a deadline that does not exist.

Colorado law is on your side here. Under the Residential Roofing Bill, C.R.S. 6-22-101 through 6-22-105, a contractor may not pay, waive, rebate or absorb your insurance deductible — an offer to do so is illegal, not generous. The same statute gives you the right to rescind a roofing contract within 72 hours of learning your insurer has denied the claim.

A company that will still be here in five years is what matters for a warranty. Ask where their office is and how long they have been at that address.

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