Think Your Car Suffered Hail Damage? How to Tell for Sure
Hail damage to a car is something often covered by auto insurance, but is it really worth it? Not all hail damage is enough to quantify an auto claim. In fact, your vehicle would have to go through a lot of heavy hailstorms to come close. Then there is the possibility that what you think is hail damage actually is not. How can you tell for sure if you want your auto insurance to pay for the damage? The following telltale signs will help.
Number of Dents
Hail is not usually a one-off sort of damaging event. You should easily spot more than one small hit or dent on the top of your vehicle, to the sides of your vehicle, and to the hood or trunk of your vehicle. The hits will look like depressions made in the metal by something heavy, with a slight scraping of the paint in the very centers of the dents. It is also possible to have more dents on one side of the vehicle than the other, especially if the hail came down at an angle from one direction. Look for these marks and count them to be sure they are really left by hail.
Number of Recent Hailstorms Where Your Vehicle Was Out in the Open
Hail damage cannot occur unless your vehicle was out in the open. Can you recall any recent hailstorms? Did you actually look out a window and see hailstones hitting your vehicle and bouncing off?
If you were not present when the damage occurred, you have to ask around about recent hailstorms. There is also a national weather service website that can tell you exactly where hailstorms occurred recently, and the recorded sizes of the hailstones that fell. If your vehicle was out in the open on a day when one of these storms hit and the damage noted to your vehicle coincides with the sizes of the stones that fell, there is a good chance that the damage was caused by hail.
You have enough evidence to prove your case in the event that you want to try to file a claim with insurance. Otherwise, you are on your own for auto hail damage repair, and you will have to foot the bill yourself. If there are not too many dents, and they are not that big, a car hail repair service should have no trouble fixing them.