A term of the claim

Cosmetic damage exclusion

A policy endorsement that removes coverage for hail or wind damage that changes how a roof looks without changing how it works.

Definition

Related pages: 5
Last revised: 23 August 2026

A cosmetic damage exclusion is an endorsement applied to roof surfacing of any material, with metal roofs most clearly in view, that removes coverage for hail or wind damage affecting only the appearance of the roof covering. Dents in a standing-seam panel that do not let water through, or marks on a gutter, are cosmetic under the endorsement; a puncture, a broken seam or a fastener lifted out of its seat is functional and remains covered. The endorsement answers the metal roof dented across every panel that still keeps the water out, and it is written broadly enough to reach shingles and tile.

Whether a given mark is cosmetic or functional is a question about the material and is decided by inspection, by the manufacturer's specifications and sometimes by testing. It is among the most argued questions in a hail claim, because the same roof can read as a total loss to a contractor and as undamaged to the endorsement. The policy language, not the severity of the storm, draws the line.

The weather record cannot say whether a dent is cosmetic. What it can do is settle the prior question the endorsement assumes: that hail is on record near the roof, on a date inside the policy period, at a size the record holds. An endorsement argument that has not first read the record is an argument about a storm nobody has established.

In the report

How the document prints it

The report does not classify damage and never prints the word cosmetic. What it prints is what the endorsement argument sits on top of: the hail sizes measured on the ground near the address and the sizes detected and not measured, each with its date, distance and source, and a finding for the hail family with its confidence. The Reading this report section gives the hail size names on the spotter chart and the severe criterion so a reader can place each recorded size against the materials questions the endorsement raises; the classification itself is the inspector's.

The terms this page uses and the guides that go further. Each is shown against its own example from the record.

Term Functional damage
Damage that shortens the service life or impairs the water-shedding of a roof covering, as distinct from damage to its appearance.
Term Soft metals
The thin metal surfaces on a property, such as vents, flashing and gutters, that dent readily and are read as a gauge of whether and how hard hail fell.
Term Hail size
The diameter of the largest hailstone at a place, reported in inches or by the named object on the spotter chart it was compared with.
Term Matching
The question of whether replacing damaged material obliges the insurer to replace undamaged material so the repair reads as reasonably uniform.
Guide Which storm caused it: attributing damage across several storm days
Most roofs in the hail belt have been under more than one storm, and a claim is rarely argued against a blank record. It is argued against the other days: the one before the policy began, the one the last carrier paid, the one nobody noticed. This guide sets out what the law asks when storms compete for the same damage, how an appraisal panel reads the record, and why the calendar has to be on the table before the argument starts.

Sources

The primary references. Each opens on the agency's own site.

The next step

The glossary defines the word. The report is what uses it.

Everything above is definition: what the word means in the document, and what it does not. None of it says what reached one roof.

Run the address and the archive is searched at the property: the storm, the date, the measured size, the distance and bearing from the roof, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.

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How this page is made

The text: Written by the editors and last revised 23 August 2026. It explains the record and how the report reads it; it contains no figure of its own.
The example: The archive holds nothing this page could show yet, so no example is printed. One appears, computed rather than written, as soon as the record holds a relevant day.
Measured and detected: A report from a person or an instrument is measured. A radar-derived size is detected, not measured, and is marked as such, here and in every document we issue. The two are never added together.
What this is not: A definition of a word the report uses. It is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about one. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.

About this record

Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.

No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.

A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.

These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.