We finished a house off Man o’ War in the last week of April. Two coats, mixed elevations, some Hardie board and some brick.
Six weeks later a June cell came through with quarter size hail, and the homeowner called us at seven the next morning. He had walked the west and south walls with a flashlight before sunrise, and he had already decided the coating had failed.
It had not. But that is not the useful part of this story.
The useful part is what he was actually holding: two documents he had never read carefully. A homeowners policy and a coating warranty. He did not know which one applied to what he was looking at, and within a few hours several people were going to arrive at his house and tell him.
That ordering decision, which document you open first and who you call first, is what costs people days and money. So this page is an order of operations rather than reassurance.
The short answer: what should you do first after hail hits a new coating?
Document the damage before you touch anything. Then get somebody to confirm whether you are looking at impact or at finish failure, because they are handled by completely different documents. Notify your insurer rather than the warranty line. Read your policy’s own filing deadline rather than relying on a general statute. And do not let anybody repair anything before the adjuster has been.
Photograph everything before cleanup, repairs or tarps beyond basic safety.
Get an inspection to confirm impact damage versus coating failure.
Notify your insurance carrier, not the coating warranty line.
Find the notice and suit-limitation deadlines written in your own policy.
Refuse repairs from anyone who knocks before your adjuster has seen the house.
Is this hail damage or is the coating failing?
This is the question the flashlight walk gets wrong, and it is answerable from the ground in about ten minutes.
How impact damage sorts itself
Impact damage obeys the weather. It clusters on the elevations that faced the storm, usually west, southwest or south depending on the cell, and it thins out or disappears on sheltered walls.
It also appears on things that are not siding. Gutter runs, downspouts, window screens, vent hoods, light fixtures, mailboxes and the top of an air conditioning unit all take the same hail as the wall does.
If your gutters are dimpled and your screens are torn and the marks stop where the wall is protected, you are looking at hail.
How coating failure sorts itself
Coating failure obeys the substrate and the preparation, not the wind.
It follows what is underneath. It shows up on sheltered elevations as readily as exposed ones, often worse on the shaded north side where moisture lingers. It concentrates at transitions, trim, butt joints and anywhere prep was difficult.
And it looks different. Peeling, blistering, flaking and lifting edges are the signatures of adhesion loss. Discrete round marks are not.
Coating failure does not sort itself by wind direction. That single sentence resolves most of these calls.
Why a wall four to six weeks old is unlikely to be failing
Early failure does happen, but it has a recognisable shape. It shows as adhesion loss across a whole area rather than as isolated marks, it appears where the substrate was damp or contaminated at application, and it grows over weeks rather than appearing overnight after a storm.
A finish that looked correct on Friday and looked marked on Saturday morning, in a pattern matching the wind, is not a product problem.
Our own coating is applied as two airless sprayed coats at roughly 80 percent solid content with ceramic microspheres, 8 to 10 times thicker than paint. Thickness helps with impact, but nothing is hail proof, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
If you cannot tell what you are looking at from the ground, that is reasonable. We will come out and tell you which one it is, in writing, free. Call (859) 695-2718.
What does hail damage look like on a coated exterior?
Know what you are photographing before you start photographing.
| Material | What hail leaves behind |
| Vinyl siding | Cracks, holes, splits, punctures, and crescent-shaped cracks near panel edges |
| Aluminum and metal siding | Circular dents and dimples, visible by sighting along the wall at an angle rather than straight on |
| Fiber cement, Hardie board, engineered wood | Chips, cracks, broken edges and damage to the finish itself |
| Wood siding and trim | Dents, splintering, chipped film and exposed raw wood |
| Brick and stucco | Spalling, chipped mortar, and fresh impact pocks that read lighter than the surrounding surface |
Two notes on method.
On aluminum and metal, do not stand square to the wall. Get to one end and sight along the surface with the light behind you. Dimples that are invisible head on become obvious at a shallow angle.
On brick and stucco, fresh impact marks are lighter than the weathered surface around them. That colour difference is what tells an adjuster the damage is recent.
The places damage hides
Gutters and downspouts. Window and door surrounds. Vent hoods and dryer vents. Screens. Soffits and fascia. Exterior light fixtures.
And one that people miss entirely: interior ceilings and window heads, over the following week. Water intrusion from a storm often shows up inside days later, and it belongs in the same claim.
Why does a coating warranty not cover hail?
Because a warranty and a policy are answering two different questions. This is worth understanding rather than resenting.
What a coating warranty exists to cover
Product and application failure.
Chipping, flaking and peeling of the coating when it was applied by an authorised dealer. The dealer typically provides service labour under the labour terms and the manufacturer provides replacement product under the product terms.
That is a promise about how a material behaves over time on a wall that was properly prepared.
What it is not
It is not an impact policy.
Across the industry, exterior finish warranties exclude damage from extreme events including hail, wind driving branches into siding, and flooding. Many paint warranties are narrower still and cover product only, with no labour at all.
Read your own warranty document for its specific exclusion wording rather than relying on any general description, including this one.
Why that distinction is reasonable
A warranty is a promise about material behaviour. It is not a promise that nothing will ever hit your house.
Insurance is the instrument for impact, and you already pay for it. Asking a coating warranty to absorb a hailstorm would be like asking a tyre warranty to cover a nail in the road.
We would rather say that on our own page than have you discover it on a phone call.
What the warranty still does after a storm
Quite a lot, and this gets overlooked.
It survives on every undamaged elevation. It remains transferable if you sell. And the completion date and registration are genuinely useful evidence in a claim, because they establish exactly what condition the exterior was in before the storm.
Warranty versus policy at a glance
| The warranty handles | The policy handles |
| Peeling and flaking of the coating | Hail impact damage |
| Blistering from application failure | Wind damage and branch strike |
| Adhesion loss traced to product or prep | Water intrusion from a storm event |
| Premature chalking and fading | Damage to gutters, screens, vents and trim |
| Manufacturing defects in the product | Repair or replacement after a covered event |
How common is hail in Lexington and when does it hit?
This was not bad luck aimed at you personally. It is the local calendar.
The Lexington pattern
Storm reports around Lexington since 2004 cluster hard into April, May and June. June is the single busiest month, with May and April close behind. December and January record effectively none.
That is a three month window that catches most of the year’s events.
Sizes actually recorded here
One inch, roughly quarter size, is the common event. That is enough to dent gutters and mark finishes without necessarily breaching siding.
The area has seen considerably larger. Three inch hail was logged in May 2022, and two and three quarter inch in June 2023.
The state picture
Kentucky recorded 73 hail events in a recent twelve month span, concentrated March through May. Central Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley take the highest incidence in the state.
Why coating season and hail season overlap here
Here is the structural reason this scenario is common in the Bluegrass rather than unlucky.
Exterior coating season effectively opens in spring, once temperatures hold above the application minimums overnight. Peak hail arrives in the same months. Which means a large share of the finishes in this market are four to eight weeks old exactly when the hail comes.
Beaumont and Hamburg Hardie board, older brick and wood around Chevy Chase, and open land properties toward Versailles and Georgetown with nothing upwind all sit in that window every spring.
How do you document hail damage for a Kentucky claim?
The most useful section on this page. It can be done in one pass around the house.
Before you touch anything
No cleanup. No repairs. No tarps beyond what safety genuinely requires.
Preserve any siding, trim or gutter pieces that came off. Put them somewhere dry rather than in the bin. Physical evidence carries weight that a photograph does not.
The photo sequence, in order
One wide frame of each elevation, with the house identifiable in the shot. Not a crop of a dent. The whole wall, so anybody looking can tell which house and which side.
Close-ups with scale, using a coin or a tape measure in frame next to the mark.
Gutters, downspouts, screens, vents and trim, which corroborate the wall damage.
Interior ceilings and window heads, over the following week, if any staining appears.
This order matters more than people expect. The Man o’ War homeowner had thirty photos of dents and not one that proved which house they were on. Wide first, close second.
What to write down
Storm date and time. Approximate hail size, compared to a coin if you have nothing else. Wind direction. Which elevations took it.
Do it the same day, while you remember.
What to keep
Your coating contract and its completion date. The warranty registration. Any finished project photos you have of every elevation. And from this point forward, every estimate, email and letter, in one folder.
Kentucky timing
The statutory limitation period for damage to real property in Kentucky is five years under KRS 413.120, with two years for personal property under KRS 413.125.
Do not plan around those numbers. The practical deadline is almost always much shorter, because policies carry their own notice requirements and suit-limitation terms, and Kentucky permits insurers to contract for a shorter period than the statute.
Report promptly and read the deadline written in your own policy. This is background rather than legal advice, and a Kentucky attorney is the right person to ask if a dispute develops.
The disputes to expect
Six show up repeatedly, and knowing their names helps.
Cosmetic only classification, where the insurer accepts the damage but says it does not affect function.
The functionality argument, a version of the same point applied to siding specifically.
No visible damage findings, where an adjuster inspecting from the ground reports nothing.
Wear and tear attribution, where damage is credited to age rather than the storm.
Repair versus replace, where a partial repair is offered instead of a full elevation.
Matching, where a policy promises like kind and quality rather than an exact cosmetic match, so a repaired section may not match the rest.
If you want an independent written read on which elevations are affected before you talk to anyone, that is what our inspection produces. (859) 695-2718.
Why being hit right after a coating job actually helps your claim
This is the part that turns the worst feeling into the strongest position.
A documented completion date
You have a contract with a completion date weeks before the storm. That is a dated record showing the exterior was in known condition immediately beforehand.
It closes off the wear and tear argument almost entirely, which is one of the six disputes listed above and one of the most common.
Finished project photos
If your contractor took photos at completion, you have a before and after baseline of every elevation that most claimants simply do not have.
Ask them. Many contractors keep them and will release them to a customer for a claim without any fuss. If they do, that set is worth more to you than anything else in your folder.
A contractor who saw the substrate
Somebody walked every square foot of that wall during preparation, weeks ago, and knows what condition it was in.
That is a witness to the pre-storm state of the exterior, which is exactly what a wear and tear dispute turns on.
The limit of that advantage
Be clear with yourself about what this is. It is evidence, not leverage.
We do not file claims, we do not work claims, and we have no influence over what any adjuster decides or any insurer pays. Anybody who tells you otherwise is telling you something they cannot deliver.
What this looked like on one Lexington house
The seven a.m. call
A flashlight walk before sunrise, thirty photos, and a homeowner who had concluded from a dark wall that his six week old coating had failed.
Predawn is the worst possible light for this. Raking artificial light exaggerates every surface irregularity and tells you almost nothing about cause.
What we found, and how the pattern gave it away
Small round marks, clustered on the west and south elevations. Nothing on the north wall, which was sheltered by the neighbouring house and by a mature tree line.
Dents along the gutter run above the worst section. Two window screens torn.
That distribution is hail. A finish problem does not skip the north wall and then take out the gutters and the screens on its way past.
What he had on file that most people do not
We corrected the photo order first: wide frames of each elevation, then close-ups with a coin for scale, then the gutters and screens.
Then we pointed out what he already had and had not thought about. A completion date six weeks before the storm, a signed contract, a registered warranty, and a set of finished project photos of every elevation from the end of April.
We are not going to tell you what his claim paid, because we do not know and it would not be ours to say. What we will publish is our own record, stated together: 4.9 stars from 51 reviews across the company, and 4.2 stars from 9 local reviews on our Lexington profile.
What not to do in the first 72 hours
Every item here is a real way people lose money in the week after a storm.
Do not sign anything a door-knocking crew puts in front of you
Storms bring crews from out of the area within days. Some are legitimate. The paperwork is the problem.
Do not sign an assignment of benefits or a contingency agreement before an adjuster has seen the house. Those documents can hand your claim, and your decision-making about it, to somebody you met yesterday in your driveway.
Ask for a written estimate and a local street address, and tell them you will call next week. A real company produces both without complaint.
Do not repair, patch or clean before the inspection
Beyond what safety requires, leave it. A cleaned or patched wall is a wall whose damage can no longer be assessed.
And do not throw away broken pieces of siding, trim or screen.
Do not call the coating warranty line first
For impact damage, that call costs you days and creates the wrong paper trail. The warranty is not the instrument for a storm.
Call your insurer. Then, if you want to know whether any of the marks are actually finish related, get an inspection.
Do not accept a verbal “it is only cosmetic”
If an adjuster reaches that conclusion, ask for it in writing along with a copy of the report.
A written explanation can be reviewed and responded to. A verbal one cannot.
Do not let anyone coat over impact damage
This is the expensive one, and it happens.
Spraying finish over dented, cracked or breached siding hides the damage for a season and traps whatever moisture is getting in behind it. The substrate has to be addressed first. Any contractor willing to skip that step is creating a problem you will pay for in two years.
Frequently asked questions
Does a coating or paint warranty cover hail damage? No. Exterior finish warranties across the industry cover product and application failure such as peeling, flaking and adhesion loss, and they exclude damage from extreme events including hail, wind driven branches and flooding. Impact damage is what homeowners insurance exists for. Read your own warranty document for its specific exclusion wording.
How do I know if it is hail damage or a coating defect? Look at the distribution. Hail clusters on storm-facing elevations, thins out on sheltered walls, and also damages gutters, screens, vents and trim. Coating failure follows the substrate and preparation instead, appears on sheltered walls too, and shows as peeling, blistering or lifting edges rather than discrete round marks.
Does homeowners insurance cover hail damage to siding in Kentucky? Typically yes, under the standard perils most policies carry, though coverage, deductibles and exclusions vary by policy. Some policies apply separate wind and hail deductibles, and some limit or exclude cosmetic damage. Your carrier decides, based on your specific policy. Report promptly and read your own declarations page.
How big does hail have to be to damage siding? One inch, roughly quarter size, is commonly enough to dent gutters and mark finishes. Softer or older vinyl can crack at smaller sizes, particularly in cold weather when it becomes brittle. Wind speed and impact angle matter as much as diameter, which is why one storm marks a wall and another of the same size does not.
How long do I have to file a hail damage claim in Kentucky? Sooner than the statute suggests. Kentucky’s limitation period for damage to real property is five years under KRS 413.120, but policies carry their own notice requirements and suit-limitation clauses, and Kentucky permits insurers to contract for a shorter period. The deadline that binds you is in your policy, so read it and report promptly.
What if the adjuster says the damage is only cosmetic? Request the finding in writing with a copy of the inspection report. A cosmetic classification can be reviewed, and many policies distinguish cosmetic from functional damage in defined terms worth reading. You can also request a re-inspection. If the dispute continues, a Kentucky attorney or public adjuster is the appropriate next step.
Does the rest of my warranty survive after hail damage? Generally yes on undamaged elevations, but confirm it in writing with your installer before any repair work happens. Ask specifically what happens to coverage on an elevation repaired by a third party, since that varies. Get the answer before the repair, not afterwards.
When is hail season in Lexington, KY? April, May and June, with June historically the busiest single month around Lexington and May and April close behind. Kentucky as a whole records most of its hail events March through May, with central Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley taking the highest incidence. December and January are effectively clear.
Should I let the insurance adjuster or the contractor look first? Notify your insurer first so the claim is open and the timeline starts. An independent contractor inspection before or alongside the adjuster’s visit is useful, because it gives you a written second read on which elevations are affected. Do not authorise any repair work before the adjuster has inspected.
Can hail damage be repaired without redoing the whole house? Often yes. Impact damage concentrates on storm-facing elevations, so repair and recoating are frequently confined to one or two walls. Matching is the complication: a policy promising like kind and quality does not guarantee an exact cosmetic match to an existing finish. Ask how any repaired section will blend before work starts.
Get someone to tell you what you are actually looking at
The homeowner off Man o’ War spent a predawn hour concluding that his coating had failed. It had not, and finding that out in the first few hours changed who he called and in what order.
If you are standing in a yard right now looking at a finish that is a few weeks old and marks you cannot explain, that is the question worth answering before anything else happens.
We will come out, walk every elevation, and tell you in writing whether you are looking at impact damage or finish failure. Free, on site, no obligation.
To be plain about the limits: we do not file claims, we do not negotiate with adjusters, and we will never tell you what your insurer is going to pay. What we can give you is an accurate read on the wall and a document you can put in your file.
Rhino Shield of Cincinnati and Kentucky, 222 Midland Ave #6109, Lexington, KY 40508. Call (859) 695-2718, Monday to Saturday, 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM. We cover Lexington and Fayette County along with Nicholasville, Georgetown, Versailles and Richmond.
Nothing on this page is legal or insurance advice. Read your own policy and warranty documents, and speak to a Kentucky attorney if a claim dispute develops.
