Hail Damage in Tennessee: What Insurance May Cover

Tennessee hail

Hail damage to a Tennessee house is a homeowners question, and hail damage to the car in the driveway is an auto question. They are not the same claim, and flood is neither of them.

What hail does, and which policy answers

Hail dents metal, bruises shingles, and cracks skylights and windows. On a house, that loss is handled under the property policy, if the form covers windstorm and hail and if no exclusion takes the loss away. On a car, the same storm is handled under comprehensive, if you bought comprehensive. Collision pays for a crash. It is not the coverage that responds to ice falling on a parked car.

There is no single Tennessee statute, quoted on this page, that says every homeowners policy covers hail. Forms differ. Some pay replacement cost on the roof. Some pay actual cash value, which is replacement cost minus depreciation. Some limit cosmetic denting, or pay for the damaged slope only, or schedule the roof on its own deductible. The declarations page and the roof endorsement control. A neighbor’s settlement is not your policy.

How a homeowners hail claim is figured

Start with the dwelling limit and the deductible. A flat deductible is a dollar amount, such as $1,000 or $2,500. A percentage deductible is a percent of the dwelling limit, Coverage A, not a percent of the repair bill. On a $250,000 Coverage A limit, a 1 percent hail deductible is $2,500. On a $400,000 limit, 2 percent is $8,000. Those are examples so the arithmetic is clear. They are not Tennessee averages, and your policy may use a flat deductible instead.

Actual cash value subtracts depreciation before the deductible math is finished in the way the form describes. A 15-year-old architectural shingle roof does not produce the same check as a two-year-old roof with the same storm and the same deductible. Replacement cost, when the form grants it, is meant to pay the cost to repair or replace without that depreciation subtraction, up to the limit and subject to any insurance-to-value clause. The Texas FAIR Plan’s own summary, which is a Texas policy and not a Tennessee one, states a version of that clause clearly enough to show why the percentage matters: if the dwelling is insured for less than 80 percent of its replacement cost, the plan may pay only part of the loss. Read your Tennessee form for whatever percentage it uses. Do not import the Texas number into a Tennessee claim.

Matching is the argument over whether the company must replace undamaged slopes so the roof looks uniform. Some policies say they will. Some say they will pay only the damaged portion. Tennessee law is not summarized here as a matching mandate, because this page is not relying on a statute it has not quoted. Ask the adjuster which clause they are using, and get the answer in the estimate, not in a hallway conversation.

What to do the day of the storm

  1. Photograph the roof, the gutters, the soft metal on the air conditioner and the flue cap, and the interior if water came in. Date the photos. A wide shot plus a close shot is more useful than twenty identical close shots.
  2. Make reasonable temporary repairs so the house does not get worse, and keep the receipts. Tarping a leak is protecting the property. Tearing off the whole roof before the adjuster has seen it is how the cause of loss becomes a dispute.
  3. Call the company or the agent and open the claim. Ask whether hail falls under the all-peril deductible or a separate wind and hail deductible.
  4. Get a written estimate from a roofer who will stand behind the scope. You do not have to sign a contract that assigns your claim to the contractor before you have read the policy.
  5. If the first offer does not match the damage, ask for the estimate in writing and compare it line by line. A disagreement about price is not the same as a denial.

Wear is not hail. A roof at the end of its life can fail in a storm and still be adjusted as old roofing. The photos from the day of the storm, and a roofer’s note that distinguishes impact marks from granule loss due to age, are what that argument turns on.

The car, the fence, and the water that follows

Comprehensive on a personal auto policy is the coverage that responds to hail dents on the vehicle, if you carry it and if you are willing to pay that deductible. Liability does not repair your own car. If you dropped comprehensive to save premium, the storm is an expense, not a claim. Rental coverage, if the car is undrivable and you bought rental reimbursement, is a separate limit. Do not assume it.

A fence, a shed, and a detached garage are other structures, usually a subsection of the homeowners policy with their own limit. They are not automatically insured for the full dwelling amount. The declarations page lists that limit.

Rain that comes in because hail broke a window can be part of the hail claim. Water that rises from a creek or sheets across the yard is flood, and a homeowners policy does not cover flood. If both happened in the same night, say so when you report the claim. Mixing them into one story is how the covered part gets tangled with the excluded part.

If the company will not write the roof

Some companies will insure the house and exclude or limit the roof, or they will decline the house because of roof age and condition. That is an underwriting decision you want before you buy, not after a storm. If you are under contract on a Tennessee house, deal with the roof while the inspection objection is still open. If you already own the house and companies are declining it, get the reason in writing and read the page on coverage after a decline. Do not cancel the policy you have because a different company said no to a quote.

If you disagree with a claim decision, the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance takes insurance complaints. Its published phone number is 615-741-2241, and its published address is 500 James Robertson Parkway, Nashville, TN 37243-0565. A complaint is not a substitute for reading the denial letter. The letter has to point at a form clause. If it does not, ask for the clause before you argue about the dollars.

Questions after a hailstorm

Does a homeowners policy always cover hail in Tennessee?

No. Many forms include windstorm and hail. Yours might exclude it, cap it, or settle the roof at actual cash value. The form controls.

Should I file if the damage might be under the deductible?

If a roofer’s written number is clearly under the deductible, opening a claim still creates a claim record. If the number is close, or water is entering, call the agent and describe it before you decide. Do not invent damage to clear a deductible. That is fraud.

Is hail on the car the same deductible as the house?

No. The house uses the homeowners deductible. The car uses the comprehensive deductible, if you have comprehensive. Two policies, two deductibles, one storm.

A percentage deductible surprises people because it ignores the size of the repair. A $4,000 roof bill and a $40,000 roof bill can both face a $5,000 deductible if that is 2 percent of a $250,000 dwelling limit. Know the dollar amount before hail season, not after the adjuster arrives.

If you are not sure what your roof settlement or hail deductible is, ask for a home quote and have the agent read the current declarations page against it.

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