Hail damage roof leads are the homes inside a hailstorm’s path whose roofs were old enough to take damage, that have not been re-roofed since, and whose owners live in them — not every address under the hail map. The difference between those two lists is most of what a roofing company or a roofing call center pays for when it buys hail data, and most of what it wastes when it does not.
This page is for the buyer: the owner or floor manager deciding which list to pull after a storm, what to cut from it, and how long it stays worth dialing. Working the footprint on foot — verifying it on the ground, routing crews, the door itself — is in how to canvass after a hailstorm, and the broader storm playbook for roofing and solar teams is in storm damage leads. Neither is repeated here.
Nothing on this page is insurance or legal advice. Claim deadlines are set by statute and by each policy, and they change; the sources and dates are named in every row below so they can be checked before a campaign.
Why the hail map alone over-calls
A hail map is drawn on hail size. The National Weather Service calls a thunderstorm severe when it produces hail 1 inch in diameter or larger, and the Storm Prediction Center calls hail of 2 inches or more significant severe (SPC, “About the SPC” definitions, last modified March 2026). Footprints are drawn by hail size, and a list cut from one includes every address inside unless someone filters it.
The trouble is that hail size describes the storm, not the roof. A 1-inch stone on a roof installed two years ago and the same stone on a roof that has weathered fifteen summers are different events. Research from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety makes the point sharply: shingles exposed to natural weathering and two simulated rounds of sub-severe hail — stones under 1 inch — became up to ten times more susceptible to damage from later large hail than new shingles (IBHS, “Impact Testing of High Concentrations of Small Hail”, as of October 2026). Two things follow for a list buyer:
- Small hail on a new roof is not a lead. A one-to-three-year-old roof under a marginal footprint is, at best, a repair conversation and usually not even that. Dialing it costs a right-party contact and earns a homeowner who will tell the next caller there is nothing wrong.
- Small hail on an old roof can be. The same research is why a weathered roof under a storm the map calls minor deserves a place on the list. Size class and roof age have to be read together; either one alone sends the floor to the wrong houses.
Which homes in the swath are worth the call or the knock
Inside a footprint, three filters do most of the work. Each one is cheap to apply before the list is bought and expensive to discover after it has been dialed.
| Filter | Why it decides the house | What happens if you skip it |
|---|---|---|
| Older roof | Weathered shingles take damage that new ones shrug off, and an older roof is the one most likely to be a replacement rather than a patch. | Setters spend the first week on homeowners whose roofs are fine, and the floor reads it as a bad storm. |
| No re-roof since the storm | In the hail belt, roofs get replaced after one storm and sit inside the next one’s footprint. A home re-roofed after last spring’s hail — or after this one — has nothing to sell. | The list carries homes that just bought a roof, often from a competitor, and the setter’s opener is wrong on arrival. |
| Owner-occupied | The policyholder files the claim and signs the contract. A tenant can do neither. | A steady share of conversations end at “I rent”, and they are charged to the script instead of the file. |
Roof age is the hardest of the three to get right, because the build year is not the roof’s age on most houses old enough to matter. How to find homes with old roofs covers the ways of estimating it and how far to trust each, and homes with new roofs covers the opposite list — the one a hail file has to be suppressed against. The re-roof filter has its own trap: the usual public trace of a replacement is a building permit, and not every replacement gets one (see why roofing permits miss re-roofs).
Roof age also changes what the homeowner stands to receive, which is why the older-roof filter is not only about damage. The Texas Department of Insurance’s home insurance guide (last updated June 2026) illustrates actual cash value coverage with a 10-year-old roof whose $10,000 replacement cost might have an actual cash value of $7,000. A setter never discusses any of that — but a floor manager should know that two homes on the same street, under the same hail, can be very different conversations.
How fast the list goes stale
A hail list decays in three ways at once, and each needs a different fix.
- Competition, in days. Every roofer within driving distance has the same map. The first week belongs to whoever dials the right houses first; after that the homeowner is fielding comparison quotes. Speed matters only if the filters above were applied — a fast list of the wrong houses is still the wrong houses.
- Replacements, in weeks. Every roof replaced inside the footprint turns a lead into a stop. A list bought on day three and dialed unchanged on day thirty is calling people who already have a new roof. Re-run the re-roof suppression before each new pass rather than once at purchase.
- The claim window, in months. The homeowner’s deadline to report the loss is set by state law and by the policy. Once it closes, an insurance conversation becomes a retail one. The storm date on every row is what lets the floor sort by how much of the window is left.
How long homeowners have to file, state by state
These are the rules confirmed on the statute or the state insurance department’s own page. Other states have their own; where a state is not listed, the deadline is the policy’s and has to be read there.
| State | What the rule says | Source, as of |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | Notice of an initial or reopened property claim within 1 year of the date of loss; a supplemental claim within 18 months. For a hurricane or other weather event, the date of loss is the landfall date or the date NOAA verifies the event. | Fla. Stat. § 627.70132, 2025 Florida Statutes |
| Texas (TWIA policies) | One year from the storm to file a wind or hail claim. The insurance commissioner may extend it by up to 180 days for good cause. | TDI “What is windstorm insurance?”, updated June 2026; Tex. Ins. Code § 2210.205 |
| Texas (other policies) | Most companies set a deadline; some policies have a one-year deadline unless the homeowner can show good cause. Before suing over disaster damage, the homeowner must give the company written notice at least 61 days ahead. | TDI home insurance guide, updated June 2026 |
| Colorado | No statutory deadline to file the claim; the filing window is the policy’s. Since January 1, 2014, a homeowner’s policy may not require a lawsuit against the insurer sooner than the applicable statute of limitations allows. | C.R.S. § 10-4-110.8(12), text current as of January 2025 |
| Minnesota | A policy insuring against hail must bar any suit not commenced within one year after the loss, and must state how and when the insured gives notice — so the notice period is set by the policy. | Minn. Stat. § 65A.26, 2025 Minnesota Statutes |
What a list buyer does with this table is narrow and important. Stamp the storm date on every row. In a state with a hard one-year rule, sort the second pass so the households closest to the end of the window are called first. And keep the deadline out of the setter’s mouth: the phone never says what a policy covers, what a claim is worth or how long the homeowner has, which is the first design decision in the roofing cold call script. The same discipline applies to deductibles — the Texas Department of Insurance states plainly that waiving a homeowner’s deductible is illegal under Texas law (TDI hail and windstorm tips, updated December 2025).
Where Scout Data fits
Disclosure: Scout Data is our product. Scout Data builds lists of homes by roof age and roof condition in your territory, with homes that were already re-roofed taken out. Each home carries one live mobile, matched by name to the owner on title and DNC-scrubbed before delivery. Ask for a free sample from the tens of thousands of roofs we have already read.
Five questions before you buy a hail list
- Is the storm date and hail size on every row? Without the date the floor cannot sort by window; without the size it cannot tell a marginal edge from the core.
- How is roof age established, per home? A build year passed off as roof age puts thirty-year-old houses with five-year-old roofs at the top of the list.
- Are homes re-roofed since the storm removed, and when was that last checked? The answer should be a date, not “yes”.
- Is the list owner-occupied only? And is the phone matched by name to the owner on title rather than to whoever lived at the address last?
- When was it scrubbed against the registry? Some states tighten solicitation rules after a declared disaster, which is why DNC scrubbing for roofing and HVAC is a pre-campaign check, not a one-time setting.
A hail list that answers all five is a short list. That is the point: the homes it leaves out are the ones that would have cost the floor a week. For how a hail list sits beside the age, street and insurance lists on a roofing floor, see roofing call center leads; for the storm that arrives as wind rather than ice, the list is built differently, and wind damage roof leads covers how.
Frequently asked questions
What size hail damages a roof?
There is no single size. The National Weather Service calls hail severe at 1 inch in diameter and the Storm Prediction Center calls it significant at 2 inches (SPC definitions page, last modified March 2026), but whether a given roof was damaged depends as much on the roof as on the stone. IBHS found that shingles exposed to natural weathering and two rounds of hail under 1 inch became up to ten times more susceptible to damage from later large hail than new shingles. A 1-inch storm over a new roof is rarely a lead; the same storm over a weathered roof often is.
How long do homeowners have to file a hail damage claim?
It depends on the state and the policy. In Florida, notice of an initial or reopened property claim must be given within 1 year of the date of loss and a supplemental claim within 18 months (Fla. Stat. § 627.70132, 2025 edition). In Texas, a TWIA wind and hail policy allows one year from the storm, and the Texas Department of Insurance says some private policies also have a one-year deadline unless the homeowner shows good cause (TDI pages updated June 2026). Colorado and Minnesota statutes regulate the deadline to sue rather than to file, so the filing window there is whatever the policy says.
Is a hail lead list still worth buying a month after the storm?
Yes, if it is rebuilt rather than re-sent. A month on, the homes that have already been re-roofed have to come out, the date of the storm has to be on every row so the floor knows how much of the claim window is left, and the homes that were inspected and deferred become their own follow-up list. A month-old list dialed as it was on day three is mostly stale; the same footprint re-filtered is often the quietest pipeline in the market.
Should a hail damage lead list include rental homes?
No, not on the same list. The claim belongs to the policyholder, and a tenant can neither file it nor authorise a roof. Landlords are a separate list with a separate pitch, reached at the owner’s mailing address rather than at the house. A hail list for a roofing floor should be owner-occupied homes, with the owner’s name and a phone matched to that name.