Wear and tear is the most common reason a carrier gives for denying a hail claim, and it is often wrong. It is also hard to disprove on your own, because you are expected to prove the damage is new.
Here is how to tell hail from age, what evidence actually helps, and what to ask the carrier for. Our team came from contracting and from inside insurance companies, so we have seen both sides of this argument.
What wear and tear actually looks like
Age damage is slow and even. A twenty-year-old roof loses granules everywhere, not in spots. You see it most on slopes that face the sun, where heat and UV dry out the asphalt. Edges curl, shingles get thin, and the surface looks uniformly tired.
Wear does not usually leave round bruises. It does not dent your vents, your gutters, or your garage door. If the carrier is calling dents on soft metals "age," that does not add up.
What hail looks like
Hail is random and directional. The hits are scattered, not uniform, and they cluster on the slopes facing the storm. A hail hit knocks granules loose in a rough circle and bruises the shingle. Press on it and the mat underneath can feel soft or cracked.
Check the collateral damage too. Hail dents soft metals: roof vents, pipe jacks, window screens, downspouts, and the garage door. Those metals prove hail fell at your address. When a carrier pays for every metal item but not the shingles, we call that "magnetic hail," and the whole argument is about the shingles.
Here is the part nobody explains. Hail damage takes years to leak. The hit cracks the mat, UV dries the asphalt, and granules shed. By the time a roof leaks, it looks old, which is exactly why a carrier can call it wear.
Why "no spatter" is not a reliable age test
Some adjusters say that fresh hail leaves spatter marks (clean spots on oxidized shingles or metal), and no spatter means the hail is old. It sounds scientific.
It is not a reliable age test. Weather and algae growth on sunlit roofs wipe spatter away. A roof with no spatter can still have a hit from last spring. If a denial rests on that alone, ask what else the carrier is using.
Old hail versus new hail
Dating hail is a judgment call, and it gets easier the older the hit is.
- Five-year-old hail is easy to spot. The hits are grayed, and the fiberglass is exposed.
- One to two-year-old hail is hard to date, and that is where most fights happen.
If the carrier says the damage is from a storm in 2019 and you filed in 2025, ask for the evidence behind that date. A date with no supporting weather record is an opinion.
Here is how that plays out, as an illustration and not a client result. Say a carrier denies your roof as old damage, and you bought the house two years ago with an inspection report that has photos and no mention of damage. That report moves the argument from "old or new" to "what changed since the inspection."
The best evidence you can have
A pre-purchase inspection report is the strongest evidence against "old damage." Look for it in your closing paperwork or ask the inspector. Even a report taken in winter with snow on the roof can help, because it shows the inspector looked at the property at a specific date.
After that, weather data. NOAA storm data is public, and it shows hail near your address on a specific day. Carrier-hired engineers often use boilerplate checklists, so specific data carries weight. If an engineer got involved, we cover what happens in our post on engineer reports.
What the carrier has to do
Minnesota sets rules for how a carrier handles a denial. Minn. Stat. § 72A.201, subd. 8 lists, among the claims practices it treats as unfair, "denying a claim or any element of a claim on the grounds of a specific policy provision, condition, or exclusion, without informing the insured of the policy provision, condition, or exclusion on which the denial is based; denying a claim without having made a reasonable investigation of the claim;"
In plain terms, the carrier has to tell you which policy provision it relied on, and it has to investigate before it denies. "Wear and tear" with no citation, or a five-minute roof walk with no measurements, is worth questioning in writing.
We're public adjusters, not attorneys. This is how the statute reads and how we use it; for legal advice talk to a Minnesota attorney.
What we ask for
When a carrier denies a roof claim as wear and tear, here is our list.
- The policy provision. The exact section being relied on, in writing.
- The adjuster's photos. Every one, not a selection.
- The engineer's report, if the carrier hired one, with the data behind its conclusions.
- A reinspection, ideally with a different adjuster and with our documentation in hand.
Then we go through the same steps we use on any denial. You can see them in our post on what a public adjuster does with a denied claim. If your claim sits near the deductible, this post on below-deductible letters may apply instead.
On Minnesota residential claims we charge a $200 initial claim review and documentation fee for the on-site inspection, the full policy, and a go or no-go answer. It is credited toward our final fee if we take the claim and win. Our FAQ covers the rest.
The honest answer
Wear and tear is sometimes the right call. Old roofs do wear out, and we turn down claims where that is what we find. But when the carrier says it with no citation, no measurements, and no weather data, it is worth pushing back. Gather the pre-purchase report, get the weather record, and ask for the policy provision in writing. No one can promise you a result, but you can make the carrier show its work.