The storm rolled through around dinnertime. Twenty loud minutes, and now you’re standing in the driveway looking at a windshield with three white chips and a crack starting to wander out of one of them.
If that’s you this summer, you have company. State Farm alone paid out more than $5.6 billion in hail claims in 2025, and the 2026 season started early — a single day of storms in March produced more than 650 reported hail events across nine states. Hail is one of the most common reasons drivers end up needing auto glass work, and it tends to arrive in waves: one storm, thousands of damaged cars, all calling shops the same week.
The good news is that hail damage follows predictable patterns, and the decision in front of you — repair it, replace it, or file a claim — is more straightforward than it feels in the moment. Here’s how to work through it.
What hail actually does to auto glass
Your windshield and your other windows are built differently, and hail treats them differently.
The windshield is laminated glass — two layers of glass bonded to a plastic interlayer. That’s why hail chips and cracks it rather than shattering it. Typical hail damage looks like small bullseyes, star breaks with short legs radiating out, or surface pitting where dozens of small stones sandblasted the glass without breaking through.
Side and rear windows are usually tempered glass, which is designed to crumble into small pebbles rather than break into shards. Tempered glass doesn’t do partial damage. Either the hailstone bounced off, or you have a seat full of glass. There’s no repairing a tempered window — if it broke, it’s a replacement.
So the real repair-or-replace question is almost always about the windshield.
Repair or replace: the honest triage
A resin repair is a genuine fix, not a cosmetic patch — done early, it restores most of the glass’s strength and stops a chip from becoming a crack. But repair has limits, and a trustworthy shop will walk you through them rather than upsell you past them.
Repair is usually on the table when:
- Each chip is smaller than a quarter, and any crack is shorter than
about six inches - The damage isn’t directly in the driver’s primary line of sight
(repairs leave a faint blemish, and a blemish you look through all day
is a problem) - The damage isn’t at the edge of the glass, where the windshield does
its structural work - You’re dealing with roughly three or fewer chips
Replacement becomes the answer when the damage is bigger, deeper, at the edge, in your sightline, or simply everywhere — heavy pitting across the glass is a replacement even if no single mark looks serious, because it scatters light at night and can interfere with the forward camera your safety systems look through.
One more hail-specific note: if your car has lane-keeping, automatic emergency braking, or adaptive cruise, the camera behind your windshield needs a clear, undistorted view. Damage in the camera’s zone — even damage that looks minor — tips the decision toward replacement, and the new glass will need a calibration afterward. A good shop will bring this up before you do.
Should you file a claim?
Hail falls under comprehensive coverage — the part of your policy that handles things that happen to your car rather than collisions. If you carry comprehensive, hail damage is covered, subject to your deductible. If you carry liability only, the repair is on you.
A few things work in your favor here:
Repairs are often free. Many major insurers waive the deductible entirely for a chip repair, because a $100 repair now is cheaper for everyone than a $700 replacement later. If your damage is repairable, ask your carrier before assuming you’ll pay anything.
A few states waive the deductible for replacement, too. Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina require insurers to waive the comprehensive deductible on windshield replacement. (Florida reformed how glass claims are handled in 2023 — shops can no longer offer gift cards or other incentives to file, and you sign your own claim rather than handing it to the shop — but the zero-deductible benefit itself is still the law.)
Hail rarely hits only the glass. If the same storm dented your hood and roof, the glass and the body damage are typically one comprehensive claim with one deductible. A cracked windshield alone might not clear a $500 deductible; a cracked windshield plus $4,000 in dent repair clearly does. Look at the whole car before you decide.
And the question everyone asks: will a claim raise your rates? Comprehensive claims are not-at-fault claims, and insurers treat them differently than accidents you cause. A single hail claim is generally not the kind of thing that drives a premium increase — though a pattern of frequent claims can get attention at renewal. If you’re on the fence, it’s a fair question to put to your agent directly.
Don’t wait it out
A chipped windshield in July is a chip on a clock. Heat expands the glass, your air conditioning contracts the inside surface, and that temperature tug-of-war is exactly how a quarter-sized chip becomes an eighteen-inch crack on your commute. Waiting also converts a possibly-free repair into a definitely-not-free replacement.
After a big storm, choose the shop — don’t let it choose you
Major hail events attract two kinds of businesses: local shops working overtime, and out-of-town operations that follow storms from city to city, set up tents in parking lots, and are gone before the warranty matters. When thousands of cars get damaged in one afternoon, the door-knockers show up fast.
A little diligence goes a long way:
- Is the shop certified? Look for AGSC (Auto Glass
Safety Council) certification — it means the installer follows the
industry’s safety standard for adhesives and installation. - Will they itemize the quote? Glass, moldings,
adhesive, calibration, mobile fee. A shop that won’t break it down is
telling you something. - Can they calibrate? If your car has driver-assist
features, ask whether calibration is done in-house or subbed out, and
whether you’ll get documentation that it passed. - What’s the warranty, and who honors it? A lifetime
warranty from a tent that leaves town Friday is worth what you paid for
the tent. - Are they pressuring you to file a claim on the
spot? Legitimate shops help with insurance paperwork. They
don’t need you to sign anything in a parking lot to “lock in” a
repair.
Hail season is stressful enough without second-guessing the fix. Get the damage looked at quickly, understand whether it’s a repair or a replacement before anyone talks price, and let your coverage do what you’ve been paying it to do.
