Hail Damage's Extraordinary Cost

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Hail is consistently one of the most damaging weather phenomena every year, even if it doesn't capture the same attention, fear or fascination as a landfalling hurricane or tornado outbreak.

Its annual cost to America's insurers, homeowners and farmers runs in the billions of dollars. According to NOAA, total damage from hail in the U.S. was just over $1 billion in 2021, the most recent year of complete damage cost estimates as of the time this piece was published.

Some of this can be attributed to the sheer number of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. From 2013 through 2022, an average of 5,087 reports of large hail were received by National Weather Service (NWS) offices each year.

Large hail is defined by the NWS as at least 1 inch in diameter, which is roughly the size of a quarter. Hail this size or larger is capable of more significant property damage.

In a few cases, a single hailstorm can be a destructive, billion-dollar event."If you get a significant hail swath traversing a densely-populated area at peak time of day, you're looking at a potentially catastrophic event loss," Steve Bowen, chief science officer with Gallagher Re, a global reinsurance firm, told weather.com.

Hail up to the size of baseballs in Denver on May 8, 2017, was responsible for insured losses exceeding at least $2.2 billion, the state's most expensive hailstorm on record, according to NOAA.

The costliest hailstorm in U.S. history hit the Phoenix metro area on Oct. 5, 2010. An estimated $2.8 billion in damage was caused by that storm, according to NOAA's storm events database. Hailstones up to 3 inches in diameter were measured on the west side of Chandler, Arizona – the largest on record in the Phoenix metro.

In April 2001, a single supercell thunderstorm with hail up to 3 inches in diameter tracked across St. Louis. The storm began in west-central Missouri and produced five tornadoes, damaging winds and then the hailstorm in St. Louis. Total insured losses alone were estimated around $2 billion.

The time of day is an important factor in hailstorm losses."If an event happens overnight, there is a possibility of reducing the cost due to vehicles being parked in garages. As compared to a late weekday afternoon when cars are parked in open lots or residents are driving home during rush hour," Bowen told weather.com.

In other words, the combination of myriad damaged vehicles and homes usually adds up to the costliest hailstorms.

H​ere's what a hailstorm can do to your home: As a general rule of thumb, damage to roof shingles can occur with hail as small as quarter-size.

"When hail hits a roof, the entire roof is replaced even if there is partial damage," said Bryan Wood, meteorologist and catastrophe analyst at American Modern, a Munich Re company.

That can cost about $5,000 to $10,000.

In rare cases of softball-size hail, typical in the Plains states a few times a year, hailstones can punch through the roof, leading to water damage in a home's interior.

Winds only worsen the damage potential.

H​ere's what a hailstorm can do to your vehicle: Typically, hail that's the size of golf balls – roughly 1.75 inches in diameter – begins to leave dents on vehicles.

Smashed windshields, not simply large cracks, typically result from hail of baseball-size or larger.

In some cases, the damage from hail can render a vehicle undrivable.

Roughly half the vehicles damaged in the May 2017 Denver hailstorm weren't drivable afterward, the Denver Post reported.

If you have time to do so safely, pull your vehicle into a garage, carport or parking garage when a severe thunderstorm warning for your area mentions large hail, no matter the size.

This may save you the hassle of repairing or replacing your vehicle and filing an insurance claim while hundreds, if not thousands, of others are doing the same.

That said, never park under a highway overpass. Other drivers may have the same idea and you could eventually block traffic, leaving other motorists in harm's way, unable to drive around the bottleneck.

The Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association has a list of steps to take if your home or vehicle is damaged by a hailstorm.

As destructive as hailstorms can be to your property, they can be devastating to crops. Depending on the size of the field and the hail swath, damage can range from moderate to a total loss.

As with homes and vehicles, high winds only make the damage worse.

In hail-prone areas of the country, farmers typically carry insurance either specifically for hail damage or a multiple-peril policy to insure against a number of threats such as high winds, fire and hail.

The future looks no less costly from hailstorms. "Since the 1970s, the average square footage of a home has increased from 1,500 to about 2,200 square feet," said Wood. "As homes get bigger, there is more surface area to be damaged."

Then there's suburban sprawl.

"With increasingly dense populations found in the most vulnerable convective storm belts of the country combining with increasingly intense hail events, that is a recipe for more costly events," said Bowen.

Essentially, there are increasingly more targets to be hit because of population growth.

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