The reason hail claims get missed is simple: a 1–2 cm stone does not put a hole in a roof. It knocks the granules off and fractures the asphalt mat underneath. The shingle keeps working for a season or two, then fails — often after the claim window has closed.
What you can check from the ground, safely
Do this after any hailstorm. It takes ten minutes and needs no ladder.
1. The gutters and the ground beneath the downspouts
Granules. They look like coarse black sand. A handful after a storm on an older roof is normal; a noticeable accumulation, or a visible pile at the bottom of a downspout, is not.
2. Soft metals, everywhere
This is the best evidence available to a homeowner, because nothing but impact makes these marks. Check the gutters and downspouts, the vent hoods and turbines on the roof, the furnace and plumbing flashing, the air conditioner fins, the garage door, the metal fence caps, the mailbox, and the barbecue lid. Dents in any of them date the storm and prove impact.
3. The deck, the siding and the windows
Chipped paint on a deck rail, splintered wood, dinged vinyl siding, torn window screens. Same logic: these corroborate.
4. Your car
If your car was in the driveway and it is dented, your roof took the same storm.
5. Binoculars on the roof itself
Look for dark, round spots where granules are missing, concentrated on the slopes facing the direction the storm came from. Look at the ridge cap, which is thinner and takes damage first.
What needs someone on the roof
The two things that decide a claim cannot be seen from the driveway.
Mat fracture
A genuine hail bruise is soft under thumb pressure, and the asphalt mat beneath the missing granules is fractured. Granule loss without fracture is weathering, not a claim. Distinguishing them is a tactile job, on the roof.
Strike density in a test square
Adjusters mark a measured area — commonly 10 ft × 10 ft — on each slope and count strikes inside it. Many insurers use a threshold, often around eight to ten strikes per square, to decide whether a slope is repaired or replaced. Your roof either clears that bar or it does not, and the only way to know is to count.
What hail damage is not
Plenty of roof problems look like hail and are not. Knowing the difference saves you from a denied claim:
- Blistering — small raised bubbles from manufacturing or heat. Round like hail, but the granule loss is centred and there is no fracture below.
- Mechanical damage — scuffs and scrapes in lines, from foot traffic or a previous trade working on the roof.
- Normal granule loss — even, across the whole roof, on all slopes. Age does not pick a direction.
- Algae streaking — dark vertical streaks on north-facing slopes. Cosmetic, and not a peril.
The directionality test
Hail arrives on a bearing. If your north and west slopes are peppered and your south slope is clean, that is a credible hail pattern and it strengthens your claim considerably. If damage is even across every slope, an adjuster will read it as age — and will usually be right.
How long you have
Longer than you would think and shorter than is comfortable. Hail damage stays identifiable for years and can be dated by pattern and by the weather record. But your policy sets a notice period, and the longer the gap, the easier it is for an insurer to argue a different storm, a later storm, or plain age. If hail has hit your neighbourhood in the last year, get it looked at.
What to do with what you found
Damage you can see from the ground is worth confirming from the roof, because the strike count is what the claim turns on. The free roof inspection produces the test squares and the dated photographs; hail damage roof repair covers the work itself, and how an Edmonton roof claim runs covers the paperwork. Granules in the eavestrough are worth a look too — a downpipe full of grit after a storm is evidence as well as a blockage. Before you climb up with a tube of sealant, read what you can safely do yourself and what wrecks the claim.