The morning after a hailstorm, two things start happening at once. Homeowners walk into the yard to look at the roof, and out-of-state crews start knocking on doors. Both tend to reach the wrong conclusion.
You cannot see hail damage from the ground
This is the part that surprises people. Hail damage to asphalt shingles usually looks like a dark bruise a bit smaller than a coin, where the impact knocked the granules loose and exposed the mat underneath. From forty feet below, on a roof you are looking at edge-on, it is invisible.
What you can see from the ground is almost never the damage that matters:
- Missing shingles are usually wind, not hail.
- Curling or cupping is age.
- Dark streaks are algae, and they are cosmetic.
Check these instead
You do not need to get on the roof. Hail that was big enough to hurt your shingles will have left evidence at ground level:
The gutters and downspouts. Look for dents in the soft aluminum, and check whether there is a pile of granules where the downspout empties. Some granule loss is normal over years. A fresh heap after one storm is not.
Soft metal around the house. Vents, flashing, the air conditioner fins, the mailbox, and any metal patio furniture. These dent at roughly the same hail size that bruises a shingle, so they are a reliable proxy.
Window screens and siding. Torn screens and dinged siding on the storm-facing side tell you the hail was both large enough and traveling fast enough to matter.
If none of those show anything, your roof is very probably fine, whatever the person at your door says.
Before you file a claim
An insurance claim is not free. Depending on your carrier, filing one — even an unsuccessful one — can affect your record and your premium. It is worth knowing whether you have real damage before you start that process, rather than after.
Get an inspection first. Any reputable roofer will do this for nothing and tell you plainly whether there is a claim worth filing. If the honest answer is no, you have lost an hour and kept your claims record clean.
About the knock on the door
Some storm-chasing crews are legitimate. Many are not, and the tell is almost always urgency: the price is only good today, they need a deposit now, they can start tomorrow.
You do not have to decide on your doorstep. Ask where the company is based, ask for a license number, and ask for a local reference you can actually phone. Then get a second opinion from someone who was in your town before the storm and will still be there next year.
That is the whole test, and it filters out nearly everyone worth avoiding.