Hail Damage and Texas Home Insurance: Roof Schedules, ACV vs RCV, and Cosmetic Exclusions

Yes, a standard Texas homeowners policy covers hail damage to your roof, siding, windows, gutters, and interior under the dwelling coverage, unless you live in a designated coastal area where wind and hail are carved out to a separate TWIA policy. The real question in 2026 is not whether hail is covered but how much of the loss actually gets paid. Three provisions carriers have quietly added to Texas policies decide that: roof payment schedules and ACV-only roof endorsements keyed to roof age, cosmetic damage exclusions, and separate wind/hail percentage deductibles that run 1% to 3% of your dwelling limit. All three sit on your declarations page and endorsement list right now. Most Texas homeowners find them for the first time at claim time, which is the most expensive possible moment.

This guide covers why Texas leads the nation in hail claims, how hail coverage works in a standard policy, the three coverage reducers and how to find each one on your declarations page, the claim process from documentation through appraisal and a TDI complaint, matching and replacement-timing issues, and what a hail claim does to your renewal. It is part of our Texas homeowners insurance hub, and it pairs with our deep dive on how wind/hail percentage deductibles actually work.

Key Takeaways

• Texas is the hail claim capital of the country. State Farm alone paid $1.4 billion in Texas hail claims in 2025, the most of any state, out of $5.6 billion nationally, per the State Farm newsroom, and Texas recorded 902 major hail events in 2025, more than double second-place Kansas, per the Insurance Information Institute.
• Hail is a covered peril, but three quiet provisions control the payout: roof payment schedules or ACV roof endorsements, cosmetic damage exclusions, and percentage wind/hail deductibles.
• An ACV roof endorsement can cut an older roof's payout roughly in half. The TDI home insurance guide uses the example of a 10-year-old roof with an actual cash value of $7,000: after a $2,000 deductible the company pays $5,000, versus a new roof at today's prices under replacement cost.
• Cosmetic hail exclusions have existed in Texas since 1998. TDI adopted endorsement HO-145 excluding cosmetic hail damage to roof coverings, per TDI Commissioner's Bulletin B-0030-98, and carriers now attach their own versions far more broadly.
• Your wind/hail deductible is a percentage of your dwelling limit, not of the loss. 2% is now the dominant standard across most of Texas, which is $8,000 on a $400,000 home, per United Policyholders.
• A hail claim by itself cannot trigger claims-based non-renewal in Texas. Under Texas Insurance Code §551.107, losses caused by natural causes do not count toward the three-claims-in-three-years threshold, though carriers can still tighten terms or non-renew for other underwriting reasons.
• Latent Insurance Services is an independent brokerage (NPN #20972791) that compares admitted carriers, high-net-worth specialty markets, surplus lines, and TWIA in one quote, and we read the roof endorsements on every option before you bind, including the broker-only markets captive agents cannot show.

Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Hail Damage in Texas?

Hail is a covered peril on every standard Texas homeowners form, and it pays under Coverage A (dwelling) for the roof and structure and Coverage C (personal property) for damaged contents. If hail breaches the roof and rain follows it in, the resulting interior water damage is covered as part of the same loss. The one big geographic exception is the coast: in TWIA's designated catastrophe area, most carriers exclude wind and hail entirely and you buy that peril from the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association instead.

The TDI home insurance guide flags this directly: if you live on the Texas coast, your home policy might not cover wind and hail damage, and you need a separate windstorm policy. We cover that structure on our TWIA page.

The exposure behind all of this is enormous. Texas recorded 902 major hail events in 2025, the most in the nation and well ahead of second-place Kansas at 375, out of 5,432 hail events nationally, per the Insurance Information Institute. On the claims side, State Farm paid over $5.6 billion in hail claims nationally in 2025, and Texas led every state at $1.4 billion, up more than 27% year over year, per the State Farm newsroom and Insurance Journal. United Policyholders counts over 14,000 significant Texas hail events between 2000 and 2023. Carriers did not respond to those numbers by leaving Texas. They responded by rewriting how roofs get paid.

The Three Quiet Coverage Reducers Texas Carriers Added

Since the heavy loss years of 2017 through 2021, Texas carriers have layered three provisions onto homeowners policies that each reduce what a hail claim pays: a change in how the roof is valued, an exclusion for damage that does not leak, and a bigger deductible that scales with your dwelling limit. None of them arrives with a phone call. They show up as endorsements and declarations-page line items at renewal.

Reducer 1: Roof payment schedules and ACV roof endorsements

The default question on any roof claim is whether you have replacement cost value (RCV) or actual cash value (ACV) loss settlement. RCV pays what it costs to install a new roof of like kind and quality at today's prices, minus your deductible. ACV pays that same replacement cost minus depreciation for the roof's age and wear. The TDI home insurance guide gives the example of a 10-year-old roof: a replacement cost policy pays for a new roof at today's prices, while the actual cash value might be $7,000, and after a $2,000 deductible the company pays $5,000.

The quiet part is how carriers now convert RCV to ACV. Some attach an endorsement that changes loss settlement for roof surfacing to actual cash value once the roof passes a stated age, commonly somewhere between 10 and 15 years depending on the carrier and the roofing material. Others attach a roof payment schedule, a sliding table that pays a declining percentage of replacement cost as the roof ages, so a 5-year-old composition roof might recover most of its replacement cost while an 18-year-old roof recovers a fraction. On the renewals we re-shop, this endorsement frequently appeared for the first time at a renewal the homeowner never read closely.

Reducer 2: Cosmetic damage exclusions

A cosmetic damage exclusion removes coverage for hail damage that changes how the roof looks but not how it works. Texas has had a regulator-approved version since the late 1990s: TDI adopted endorsement HO-145, Exclusion of Cosmetic Damage to Roof Coverings Caused by Hail, for the Texas homeowners forms, per TDI Commissioner's Bulletin B-0030-98. The TWIA version of the endorsement defines cosmetic loss as damage that alters the physical appearance of the roof but does not compromise its waterproofing or structural function, per the TWIA filing at TDI.

The original 1998 design had a fair trade built in: the exclusion attached to roofs receiving premium credits for impact-resistant coverings meeting UL Standard 2218, and it was void unless the insured signed it. TDI still publishes the qualifying impact-resistant products list, per TDI's roofing discounts page. On modern carrier-filed policies the exclusion shows up more broadly, sometimes without a matching credit, and it matters most on metal roofs, where hail dents are usually cosmetic by definition, and in disputes over whether granule loss and bruising on composition shingles is functional damage. If your roof is metal, or your policy carries any endorsement with the word cosmetic in the title, read it before storm season, not after.

Reducer 3: Separate wind/hail percentage deductibles

Most Texas policies now carry a separate deductible for wind and hail that is a percentage of your Coverage A dwelling limit, not of the loss and not a flat dollar amount. Wind and hail deductibles typically run 1% to 5% of the home's insured value, and 2% has become the dominant standard across most of Texas, particularly in the hail-active north, per United Policyholders. On a $400,000 dwelling limit, a 2% deductible means you absorb the first $8,000 of any hail loss. The math, the named-storm and hurricane variants, and the buy-down options get their own full treatment in our companion piece on Texas wind/hail percentage deductibles.

How to Read Your Declarations Page and Find All Three

You can find all three provisions in about ten minutes with your declarations page and the endorsement list that follows it. The declarations page shows your coverage limits and deductibles; the endorsement schedule lists every form attached to the policy by number and title. Anything that changes how your roof pays will be in one of those two places.

If any of the three is unclear, email your agent or carrier and ask two questions in writing: is my roof settled at replacement cost or actual cash value today, and will that change at a stated roof age? A written answer becomes part of the file if a claim later goes to dispute. When we quote a Texas home, we put each carrier's roof settlement basis, cosmetic language, and deductible side by side, because a policy that looks $400 cheaper often has an ACV roof endorsement doing the work.

The Texas Hail Claim Process, Step by Step

A Texas hail claim follows a predictable path: document, mitigate, file, meet the adjuster, then escalate through appraisal or a TDI complaint if the numbers or the coverage decision are wrong. Texas law also puts the carrier on a clock. Under the Prompt Payment of Claims Act, Texas Insurance Code Chapter 542, an insurer must acknowledge your claim, start investigating, and request what it needs within 15 days, then accept or reject the claim within 15 business days after it receives everything it requested. Those deadlines extend by 15 days after a weather-related catastrophe, and an insurer that pays late owes statutory interest plus attorney's fees.

1. 1.
   Document before anything is moved or tarped. TDI's guidance after hail is to photograph and video the damage, including the roof, gutters, window screens, HVAC fins, and any interior water intrusion, per TDI's hail damage page. Date-stamped drone or ladder photos of the roof beat ground shots.
2. 2.
   Make temporary repairs and keep every receipt. Tarp openings and remove standing water. Reasonable temporary repair costs are reimbursable under the policy, and failing to prevent further damage can reduce the claim.
3. 3.
   File promptly. Some Texas policies impose a deadline as short as one year to file suit or complete the claim process, per TDI's storm recovery guidance. After a widespread hail event, adjusters book out fast; earlier filers get earlier inspections.
4. 4.
   Meet the adjuster with your own roofer present. A reputable local roofer on the roof during inspection keeps missed slopes and undercounted squares from becoming a lowball estimate. Get the carrier's itemized estimate in writing.
5. 5.
   Pay your deductible, for real. It is illegal in Texas for a contractor to waive or rebate your deductible, and carriers can require proof you paid it before releasing full replacement cost, per TDI. A roofer who offers to eat the deductible is committing a crime and flagging the quality of everything else they do.
6. 6.
   Invoke the appraisal clause if the dispute is about money. Appraisal resolves disagreements over the amount of the loss, not over whether the policy covers it. You and the carrier each hire an appraiser, the two appraisers select an umpire, and the umpire's decision on disputed values is binding, per TDI.
7. 7.
   File a TDI complaint if deadlines are blown or the coverage position is wrong. Complaints must be in writing through TDI's online complaint portal, and a complaint forces the carrier to explain its position to the regulator, per the TDI home insurance guide.

Matching, Discontinued Shingles, and Replacement Timing

Texas is not a matching state. There is no Texas statute requiring an insurer to replace undamaged roofing or siding so the repaired section matches the rest, and Texas court decisions have generally held that a policyholder recovers only for the portion of the property actually damaged, per IRMI's analysis of the matching problem. If hail ruins one slope and your shingle color was discontinued in 2019, the carrier's default position is to pay for that slope.

That default is not the end of the argument. Three things move real-world outcomes:

• Policy language controls. Some policies and endorsements address matching or pair-and-set directly, in either direction. A few carriers sell limited matching coverage as an endorsement; others expressly cap it. Read the loss settlement conditions before you argue.
• Repairability is a factual question. If damaged shingles cannot be repaired or replaced without breaking surrounding shingles, or the product is discontinued and no reasonable match exists, the practical scope of repair grows. Document this with your roofer and the manufacturer's discontinuation notice.
• Appraisal is often the venue. Whether a uniform result requires a larger scope of work is usually a dispute about the amount of loss, which is exactly what the appraisal clause exists to resolve.

On timing: if you have replacement cost coverage, expect the payment in two parts. The carrier first pays actual cash value, then releases the recoverable depreciation after you complete the repairs and submit invoices. Do not sit on a roof claim check. Policy deadlines to complete replacement and recover depreciation are enforceable, contractor prices rarely fall, and an unrepaired roof invites both a denied future claim and a non-renewal for condition.

How a Hail Claim Affects Your Renewal (and the Re-Shop)

A single hail claim cannot lawfully be the sole basis for claims-based non-renewal of a Texas homeowners policy. Under Texas Insurance Code §551.107, an insurer may use claim frequency to refuse renewal only when the insured has filed three or more claims in a three-year period, and claims resulting from losses caused by natural causes, which is what hail is, do not count toward that threshold. The same section governs when a claims surcharge is allowed at renewal.

What the statute does not do is freeze your terms. Carriers respond to hail losses at renewal in ways that are perfectly legal and easy to miss:

• Loss settlement quietly moves from RCV to ACV on the roof, or a roof payment schedule appears in the endorsement list.
• The wind/hail deductible steps up from 1% to 2% or 3%, which on a $500,000 home is a $5,000 to $10,000 swing in your out-of-pocket.
• A cosmetic exclusion attaches, especially after a paid claim on a metal roof.
• The carrier non-renews for underwriting reasons unrelated to your claim count, such as roof age or reducing its concentration in a hail-heavy ZIP, with 60 days written notice under Texas Insurance Code Chapter 551.

The answer to all four is the same: re-shop the market with the endorsements in view, not just the premium. If you get a non-renewal notice, our Texas non-renewal playbook walks the timeline, and our guide to being dropped by your homeowners insurer covers the four placement lanes. Homeowners in the DFW hail corridor should also see our Dallas homeowners insurance page, because carrier appetite there turns over faster than anywhere else in the state.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does homeowners insurance cover hail damage to a roof in Texas?

Yes. Hail is a covered peril on standard Texas homeowners policies, and roof damage pays under the dwelling coverage, along with interior water damage that follows a hail-created opening. The exceptions that matter are geographic and contractual: on the coast, most carriers exclude wind and hail and you buy that peril from TWIA, and everywhere else the payout is shaped by your wind/hail deductible, whether the roof is settled at replacement cost or actual cash value, and any cosmetic damage exclusion on the policy. Check the declarations page and endorsement list for all three before storm season.

What is the difference between ACV and RCV for a roof in Texas?

Replacement cost value (RCV) pays what it costs to install a new roof of like kind and quality at today's prices, minus your deductible, with the depreciation portion released after repairs are complete. Actual cash value (ACV) pays replacement cost minus depreciation for the roof's age and wear, so an older roof nets far less. The TDI home insurance guide illustrates it with a 10-year-old roof worth $7,000 at actual cash value: after a $2,000 deductible, the carrier pays $5,000, versus funding a full new roof under RCV. Many Texas carriers now convert roof settlement to ACV by endorsement as the roof ages, so the answer can change at renewal without your premium changing much.

What is a cosmetic damage exclusion on a Texas homeowners policy?

A cosmetic damage exclusion removes coverage for hail damage that alters the appearance of the roof but does not compromise its waterproofing or structural function, which is the definition used in the TDI-filed endorsement forms. TDI first adopted a cosmetic hail exclusion, endorsement HO-145, in 1998, originally tied to premium credits for impact-resistant UL 2218 roofs and requiring the insured's signature. Modern carrier versions appear more broadly. The exclusion matters most on metal roofs, where dents rarely cause leaks, and in disputes over whether shingle bruising and granule loss is functional damage, which is a fight best supported by a qualified roof inspection.

How long do I have to file a hail damage claim in Texas?

File as soon as you reasonably can, and treat one year as the outer bound unless your policy says otherwise. TDI's storm recovery guidance notes that policies impose claim deadlines and that some Texas policies require action within one year unless you show good cause for delay. Beyond the contract language, practical timing matters: after a major hail event adjusters are booked for weeks, evidence degrades as weather continues, and late claims invite disputes about which storm caused the damage. Photograph the damage immediately even if you have not decided whether the loss clears your deductible.

Will my insurance be non-renewed or surcharged after a hail claim in Texas?

Not because of the hail claim alone. Texas Insurance Code §551.107 allows claims-based non-renewal only after three or more claims in a three-year period, and claims from losses caused by natural causes, including hail, do not count toward that threshold. Carriers can still raise your wind/hail deductible, move your roof to actual cash value settlement, attach a cosmetic exclusion, or non-renew for separate underwriting reasons like roof age or geographic concentration, with 60 days written notice. If your renewal terms deteriorate after a claim, that is the signal to re-shop the full market rather than accept the new endorsements by default.

Can my roofer pay or waive my hail deductible in Texas?

No. Texas law makes it illegal for a contractor to waive, absorb, rebate, or otherwise pay a policyholder's insurance deductible, and TDI warns homeowners to avoid contractors who offer to do it. Carriers are allowed to require proof that you actually paid the deductible, such as a canceled check or receipt, before releasing the full replacement cost payment. A roofer offering to eat your deductible is proposing insurance fraud with your name on the claim, and it is also a reliable indicator of how the rest of the job will go. Budget for the deductible as a real cash cost when you choose your deductible percentage.

Will insurance pay to match my shingles if my color is discontinued?

In Texas, usually not by default. Texas has no matching statute, and Texas courts have generally limited recovery to the portion of the property actually damaged rather than requiring replacement of undamaged sections for uniform appearance. Outcomes still turn on your specific policy language, whether the damaged materials can be repaired without damaging surrounding materials, and whether any reasonable match exists for a discontinued product. Matching disputes are often resolved through the appraisal clause as a disagreement over the amount of loss. Some carriers offer limited matching coverage by endorsement, which is worth asking about when you re-shop.

If you own a Texas home and cannot say from memory whether your roof pays at replacement cost, what your wind/hail deductible is in dollars, or whether a cosmetic exclusion is attached, Latent Insurance Services will read your policy and re-shop it with those three provisions in view. We are an independent brokerage (NPN #20972791) that quotes admitted carriers, high-net-worth specialty markets, surplus lines, and TWIA in parallel, and we compare the roof endorsements and deductibles side by side, not just the premiums.

Get a Texas hail coverage review or schedule a call. Bring your declarations page and endorsement list, and we will show you exactly how your next hail claim would pay.

Last updated: July 12, 2026. Sourced from the Texas Department of Insurance, the Texas Insurance Code, the Insurance Information Institute, State Farm, Insurance Journal, United Policyholders, and IRMI (all cited inline above).

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