What a hail bruise actually is
A hail bruise is not a hole and it is often not visible from the ground. It is a soft, slightly depressed circle where the impact fractured the fibreglass mat inside the shingle and knocked the protective granules loose. Press it and it gives, like a bruise on fruit. That fracture is what matters: the mat is the shingle’s structure, and once it is broken the shingle will fail early even though it may look intact for another year or two.
Granule loss on its own is not automatically a claim. Shingles shed granules with age, and an adjuster can tell weathering from impact by the pattern — impact is random and circular, weathering is even and follows the water.
The test square, and why it decides your claim
The adjuster chalks a ten-foot by ten-foot square on each slope, usually in a representative area rather than the worst one, and counts the bruises inside it. Eight to ten hits in that square is the figure most carriers treat as enough to replace the slope. It is applied per slope, which is why a claim can approve a north slope and decline a south one on the same house.
This is worth knowing before the adjuster arrives, because it means you are entitled to ask where the square was chalked and to walk the roof with them. If the square landed in the least-damaged corner of a slope, that is a conversation to have on the roof, not afterwards.
The soft metals are checked first
Aluminium and steel bruise at a lower impact energy than an asphalt shingle, so the fastest read on whether a storm was capable of damaging your roof is the soft metal on it: vent hoods, the drip edge, valley metal, the gutters and downspouts, and anything aluminium on the elevations.
If the gutters and vents are dimpled and the shingles look clean, that usually means the hail was small — real, but under the size that fractures a shingle mat. If the soft metals are untouched, a shingle claim is going to be hard to make. It is the first thing we photograph.
Hail size, roughly, and what it does
Pea-sized hail rarely damages an asphalt roof. Around one inch — a quarter — is where bruising starts to appear on older or weathered shingles. At an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half, damage becomes common across most shingle types, and above that it is usually obvious.
None of that is a substitute for an inspection. Age, shingle type, slope, and the direction the storm came from all change the outcome, and two roofs the same age can read completely differently.
What it costs you, and who does what
On an approved claim your deductible is typically your only out-of-pocket cost. That is true whether the carrier approves one slope or the whole roof.
United Developers is a roofing contractor, not a public adjuster. You file and own the claim. We inspect free, photograph what is up there in a report that is yours to keep, and meet your adjuster on the roof so you are both looking at the same evidence. If we do not find damage that supports a claim, we tell you that, free, and we do not file anything on your behalf.
Get it looked at, free
We inspect across Maryland — Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard, Anne Arundel, Frederick, Carroll and Baltimore counties. Free inspection, photo report within 24 hours, and the report is yours to keep whether or not you hire us.