What to Do About Hail Damage

insurehound

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It's been awhile since I've been on the forum!

So what I know about P&C would scare you as a Life/Health guy. I was hoping to get some advice.

I got my car washed yesterday and noticed minor hail damage on my roof. I have no idea when it happened. I live in Colorado so we have hail quite often in the summer.

The car is leased and I do not plan to keep it. It's a Mazda3 and I leased it as a temporary solution.

I have a $500 deductible. I am concerned about calling in the claim now as I have no idea when it happened. Might be a good excuse for them to deny the claim. I'm also concerned about the car being tagged as one with hail damage when I trade it in. I may loose a lot of value although I am not sure.

My initial thought was to get an estimate from a PDR shop as it may be less than $500 to repair or wait until the next big hail storm rolls in and then call my insurance company.

Thoughts?
 
If its as minor as it sounds, I would probably just ignore it. You may pay a couple of dollars when you turn the lease in, but, probably no different then paying it in the deductible though.

If its more severe, call the insurance company. When I lived in CO, they were very used to delayed hail claims.

Dan
 
Just file the claim. I see cars all the time that the date of loss is a year or more prior. I've been seeing a lot lately. When tax return time comes, people start trading in cars. The dealers will hit their value for hail damage and often the insured didn't even know they had it. Lots of people can't see light hail damage.

The average PDR only hail claim is probably $2500ish. It's not only pushing the dents, it's all the removing parts to get access to push the dents.
 
"My initial thought was to get an estimate from a PDR shop as it may be less than $500 to repair or wait until the next big hail storm rolls in and then call my insurance company."

If the idea is to claim the damage happened during the most recent hail storm, forget that idea. Felony insurance fraud isn't something to trifle with.
 
"My initial thought was to get an estimate from a PDR shop as it may be less than $500 to repair or wait until the next big hail storm rolls in and then call my insurance company." If the idea is to claim the damage happened during the most recent hail storm, forget that idea. Felony insurance fraud isn't something to trifle with.

Yeah but who can say what storm caused what damage.

I used to sell roofs after hail damage. How much of that damage was new was anybody's guess.

Hard to prove insurance fraud here.
 

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