Identifying hail damage on your belongings such as patio furniture or your car is relatively straightforward.
How to simulate hail damage on a roof.
However determining whether your roof has sustained damage from a hailstorm may be a little more difficult.
Hail storms can cause a wide range of damage to your roof and your property in general.
You can expect a bigger payout if a storm destroys your 5 year old roof than if your roof was already pushing 25 years at the time of the damage.
Home insurance companies in past years have been walloped by numerous and expensive roof claims.
Wind and hail damage.
The amount and type of damage hail causes on roofs depends on a variety of factors.
The round dings in metal are obvious signs of hail damage.
Even seemingly minor hail storms can cause significant problems that you might not notice until the damage increases over time and creates openings that may be harder for a roof leak repair or even require a replacement roof.
Roofs with multiple shingle layers may be damaged by smaller hail stones due to a softer support surface directly under the top shingle layer.
If your roof contains one layer of common asphalt shingles it usually takes a 1 or above diameter hail stone to cause damage roof hail damage.
One factor that will come into play is the expected life of your roof.
To combat this many home insurers have implemented different coverage levels.