Every dent counted before the claim goes in
The panels are read under a line-board light and each dent is marked by size and position. That count is what the estimate and the adjuster’s sheet are built on, so nothing gets argued about later.
Paintless where the paint survived
Hail rarely cracks the clear coat, which makes most of it a candidate for paintless repair: the metal is worked back from behind and the factory finish stays.
Conventional repair where it did not
Sharp hits on a panel edge, dents on aluminum hoods that will not push cleanly, and any chipped paint get filled and refinished, blended into the panel next to it.
Comprehensive claim, opened from our side
Hail is a comprehensive claim rather than collision, so there is no fault to assign and no other driver involved. We open it with your insurance company and send the photos and the count.
Roof mapped under the light
Paintless push from behind
Panel by panel
What hail does to a car, panel by panel
Hail lands from above, so it hits the horizontal surfaces: roof, hood, trunk lid, and the upper curves of the fenders and quarters. The stones are round and soft-edged compared with a shopping cart or a door edge, which is why most hail dents are shallow dishes with no crease and no paint damage. The paint stretches with the metal and springs back. The exception is the ridge of a panel, the edge of a roof rail or the crown of a fender, where the metal is doubled or braced underneath and a stone leaves a sharper mark that can chip the clear coat.
Roofs are the hardest panel because the headliner has to come down for access from behind, and hoods with a full underside brace can only be reached through the brace openings. Aluminum hoods and trunk lids, common on newer vehicles, are less forgiving than steel and need slower work. Our estimator reads all of this at the first look and decides, dent by dent, which technique each one gets.
How the repair runs here
The car goes under a reflective line board, which turns each dent into a bend in a straight stripe and makes even the shallow ones visible. Each panel is marked up and counted by size, and that map becomes the estimate. Where the paint is intact the dent is worked from behind with a rod or from the front with glue tabs, in small pushes until the reflection runs straight again. A roof with a hundred dents is a patient job; the headliner is dropped, the rods go through the roof rail openings, and the tech works one stripe at a time.
Panels that took a sharp hit, or a dent that sits on a body line and will not push cleanly, are repaired conventionally: the low spot is filled, primed, block sanded and painted, with the colour blended into the neighbouring panel so the repair disappears. A hood or trunk with more damage than paintless repair can recover is replaced and refinished rather than reworked past the point of sense. The two methods are combined on most hail cars, and the estimate shows which panels get which.
Hail in the GTA: summer storms and what they leave behind
Hail here arrives with summer thunderstorms, mostly June through August, when a storm line moves across the 401 corridor late in the afternoon, drops stones for five minutes over a strip of Markham, Scarborough or Vaughan and leaves the next neighbourhood untouched. The cars that get hit are the ones parked outside: street parking on the Danforth and in Riverdale, surface lots at Fairview Mall or Scarborough Town Centre, driveways in Richmond Hill and Stouffville where the 404 heads north into open country. Dealers with open lots take the worst of it.
Because a storm hits hundreds of cars at once, the days after one are busy at every shop and at every insurance company. Photos taken in daylight with the car parked at an angle to the sun show the dents best; send those and we can get the claim opened while the car stays with you, then book a date for the actual repair rather than have it sit in a lot waiting.
The claim and the deductible
Hail is a comprehensive claim, not a collision claim: there is no other driver, no fault to assign, and it is paid by your own insurance company under the comprehensive portion of your policy, less your deductible. If you carry collision only, or have dropped comprehensive to save on the premium, the repair is out of pocket. Check the declarations page before calling.
Once the claim is open the adjuster either looks at our photos and count or comes out to see the car under the light. Hail estimates are built on a per-dent matrix by panel and size, which is standard across the industry, so the conversation with the adjuster is mostly about which panels need conventional work rather than about the count. A rental is covered if your policy includes loss-of-use, and we time the drop-off so the car is here only for the days it is actually being worked on.
Questions people ask
Is hail damage worth claiming, or should I live with it?
A roof and hood full of dents lowers what the car is worth at trade-in or lease return, and comprehensive claims carry no fault. If there are only a handful of dents, the answer may be paintless repair paid out of pocket; our estimator will tell you which side of that line your car is on from the photos.
Will the car need to be repainted?
Not where the finish survived, which is most of a typical hail car. Paintless repair keeps the factory paint. Only panels with chipped paint or dents too sharp to push get filled and refinished.
How long does a hail repair take?
A hood and trunk with light damage can be done in a couple of days. A roof with heavy hail, the headliner out and some conventional work usually runs a week to two, depending on how much paint is involved and how busy the storm has made everyone.
What if my car was hit while parked at work or at a mall?
It makes no difference to the claim. Hail is weather, and comprehensive coverage follows the car wherever it was parked. The property owner is not responsible for it.
Can you handle two or three cars from one household after a storm?
Yes. When a storm crosses a neighbourhood we often see several cars from one driveway. Each gets its own claim and its own map, and we schedule them so the household is not without a car the whole time.