Hail damage in Lubbock
Hail is the reason most South Plains roofs get replaced, and it is also the damage homeowners are least able to judge from the driveway.
Hail does not damage a roof the way people picture it. Outside of a genuinely severe event you are rarely looking at holes or shattered shingles. What you are looking at is bruising: the stone hits, the granules that protect the asphalt scatter, and the mat underneath fractures without breaking the surface.
That bruise does nothing on the day. It does something over the following two or three summers, when West Texas sun works on asphalt that no longer has its granule layer, the bruise opens, and water finds it. Which is why a roof that looked fine after the storm starts leaking years later, long after the claim window closed.
Why you cannot call it from the ground
The tells are small and most of them are not on the roof field at all. Experienced inspectors look at the soft metal first, because soft metal records the storm honestly: gutters, downspouts, vents, the caps on turbines, flashing, and anything aluminium. If those are dimpled, the roof took hits, and the question becomes how many and how hard.
They also look at where the storm came from. Hail rides the wind, so damage is usually concentrated on one or two elevations rather than spread evenly. A roof can be comprehensively hit on its north and west faces and essentially untouched on the south.
How the money actually works
Most wind and hail policies in this part of Texas carry a percentage deductible rather than a flat one. One or two percent of the dwelling limit is common, which on a $300,000 limit is $3,000 to $6,000. Check the declarations page before you decide whether a claim is worth filing, because on a partial loss it sometimes is not.
Most policies also pay in two parts. Actual cash value comes first, which is replacement cost less depreciation. The withheld depreciation is released when the work is finished and invoiced. A contractor asking for the full replacement cost before starting is asking for money your insurer has not released.
Partial or full
Insurers and contractors disagree about this constantly and both sometimes have a point. An insurer may scope a repair to the two slopes that were hit. A contractor may argue the shingle is discontinued, that the colour will not match, or that you cannot tie new into old on that profile without compromising the system. Texas has a matching provision question that turns on your specific policy language, which is a sentence worth reading before the argument starts.
What you should not do is let the argument happen without you in it. It is your claim and your roof.
What a good inspection produces
Photographs with a chalk circle and a measure in frame, per elevation, not a handful of general shots. A count of hits per test square, because that is the language an adjuster works in. The soft metal evidence. A note of the storm date being claimed. And a scope that lists what is being replaced rather than a single number.
Questions people ask
- I cannot see anything from the ground. Does that mean my roof is fine?
No, and this is the single most common misreading. Functional hail damage on asphalt shingles is bruising, where the impact fractures the mat under the surface granules. From the ground it looks like a roof. From two feet away it is a soft spot that will open up over the next few seasons.
- How long do I have to file?
Policies set their own deadlines and Texas law sets outer limits, and both are shorter than people assume. If a storm went through and you think it hit you, get it looked at while the date is still easy to establish.
- My neighbour got a new roof. Should I?
Maybe. Hail falls in swathes and it is genuinely common for one side of a street to be hit and the other side missed, or for one elevation of a house to be hit and the others not. What your neighbour got is a reason to look, not an answer.