➢ Hail Claim Denied or Underpaid? Our Lawyers Can Help.
Texas homeowners and business owners whose hail damage insurance claim was denied, delayed, or underpaid may be eligible to take legal action against their insurance company and recover the full amount owed under their policy.
Our law firm, Hissey Mulderig & Friend, is accepting first-party hail damage insurance claims from policyholders throughout Texas.
If you or a loved one filed a hail damage claim in Texas and your insurance company denied it, undervalued it, or has failed to respond, you may qualify to file a lawsuit and receive compensation.
Contact the attorneys at Hissey Mulderig & Friend toll-free at 1-866-806-8117, or submit a free case evaluation form to speak to an attorney and find out whether you qualify.
➢ What Hail Actually Does to a Shingle
A hailstone does not usually punch through a roof. It bruises it.
The mineral granules on an asphalt shingle shield the asphalt mat beneath from ultraviolet light and moisture. Impact knocks those granules loose and fractures the mat, leaving a circular or oblong depression that feels soft when pressed, like a bruise on fruit.
Once the mat is exposed, the shingle ages on a faster clock, and the roof’s remaining service life drops well below what the manufacturer’s warranty contemplated.
That is the core of the hail dispute. On the day of the storm, a bruised roof may not leak. It will. A claim denied because the roof is currently keeping water out is denied on the basis of a condition hail has already ended.
➢ The Cosmetic Damage Exclusion
Texas policies may carry an endorsement removing coverage for hail damage classified as cosmetic.
Some Texas policies exclude hail damage that only changes how a roof looks. If your policy includes this tradeoff, you’ll see it listed as HO-145 or TDP-022.
The endorsement language defines cosmetic loss as damage that alters the physical appearance of the roof covering but does not allow water penetration and does not otherwise cause the roof covering to fail at keeping out the elements over an extended period of time.
Two points get lost in denial letters. The endorsement expressly preserves coverage for hail damage that does cause water penetration or functional failure, so it is not a hail exclusion. And it is an endorsement rather than standard policy language, accepted by many policyholders in exchange for a modest premium credit without a clear understanding of the trade.
Commercial policies use their own version, commonly the ISO CP 10 36 form, which sometimes reaches beyond the roof to siding, doors, and windows.
Metal roofs are where these disputes concentrate. A dented panel rarely leaks on day one, which makes the cosmetic label easy to apply. Dents at seams, fasteners, and protective coatings are different, because those are the points where a metal roof sheds water.
➢ “Functional Damage” Is Not a Policy Term
Adjusters routinely deny hail claims on the ground that the roof has not sustained functional damage. That phrase comes from engineering literature, not from insurance policies.
As the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas has noted in its guidance on Texas roof claims, the phrase appears nowhere in the typical replacement cost policy. What the policy actually covers is direct physical loss, and Texas courts have generally treated physical loss as meaning damage.
A bruised shingle with a fractured mat is damaged. Whether an engineering firm would call that damage functional is a separate question from whether the policy covers it, unless the policy carries a cosmetic exclusion that makes the distinction relevant.
The same literature supplies the threshold many adjusters apply without citing it: a slope is generally treated as damaged when a 100 square foot test square contains at least ten hail impacts. That is an industry convention, not policy language.
➢ Hail Size Is Not the Whole Question
Denial letters frequently cite reported hail size, reasoning that stones of a given diameter cannot damage a roof.
Impact testing does support general thresholds. Three-tab asphalt shingles typically withstand stones up to about one inch, and thicker laminated or architectural shingles hold up to roughly 1.25 inches. But three variables undercut any argument built on size alone.
Wind changes the physics. Damage comes from kinetic energy, not diameter, and a smaller stone driven sideways at 60 mph can strike harder than a larger stone falling through still air.
Roof age changes the target. Asphalt stiffens and dries with age and the granule bond weakens, so a stone that leaves a five-year-old roof unmarked can fracture the mat on a fifteen-year-old one.
Reported size is often wrong. Research by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety found roughly a third of contractors misclassified hailstones by at least a quarter inch when estimating visually. Radar estimates and crowd-sourced reports carry their own error margins, and a quarter inch separates a covered claim from a denied one.
➢ What a Thorough Hail Inspection Documents
Hail leaves a record across an entire property, not only on the roof.
Soft metal surfaces are the most useful evidence a property has. Gutters, downspouts, vents, flashing, window screens, air conditioner fins, and mailboxes dent on impact and hold those dents, establishing that hail of a damaging size reached the address, on which slopes, and from which direction.
A complete inspection also marks and photographs test squares on each slope, probes suspected impacts to confirm mat fracture rather than blistering, separates hail bruising from foot traffic and mechanical marks, and documents collateral damage to siding, fencing, decking, and outbuildings. Dated photographs predating the storm carry substantial weight against an argument that the damage came earlier.
➢ Hail Damage to Vehicles
Hail damage to a vehicle is covered under comprehensive coverage regardless of fault, and disputes usually involve repair method or valuation.
Insurers often write estimates calling for paintless dent repair where the panel is stretched or the dent sits on a crease or edge, neither of which that method can correct.
On severely damaged vehicles, the dispute shifts to whether the total loss figure reflects what the vehicle was worth before the storm, which is covered on our page about Texas vehicle damage insurance claims.
➢ Who Is Eligible to File a Texas Hail Damage Insurance Claim?
Texas property owners may be eligible to file a claim if they meet the following case criteria:
- Owned a home, business property, or vehicle in Texas struck by hail;
- Carried an insurance policy covering the property on the date of the storm;
- Received a denial, a partial payment, a cosmetic damage determination, or no response after reporting the loss.
If you or a member of your family answered yes to all of the above criteria, you may qualify to file a lawsuit and receive compensation.
➢ Contact Our Law Firm to Start Your Claim Today
The lawyers at Hissey Mulderig & Friend have more than 100 years of combined legal experience representing clients across the state of Texas. Our firm is accepting hail and other storm damage insurance claims involving homes, businesses, and vehicles, including claims denied on cosmetic damage grounds.
If you or a loved one had a Texas hail damage insurance claim denied, underpaid, or delayed by your insurance company, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit and receive compensation.
Find out whether you qualify or start your claim today by calling the lawyers at Hissey Mulderig & Friend toll-free at 1-866-806-8117, or by filling out the free case evaluation form located at the top of this page.
