Hail damage photos from a roofer: what the file can show, and what only the adjuster can

Two days after a hailstorm, a roofer emails the owner of one of your rental houses. They were working on the street, went up on your roof, and found damage. Attached are a dozen close-ups: dented vents, shingles with circles chalked around dark marks, a gutter with dings in it. They offer to handle the insurance claim. The owner forwards it to you and asks whether it’s real.

Most of the time it will be. Hail does damage roofs, and roofers do find it. This piece is about what those photo files can and can’t tell you before anyone signs anything, which public records to set beside them, and what Colorado law says about the contract that usually comes next. It is not legal advice.

What no photo can tell you

Start with the limit, because it is the big one. A photo of a damaged shingle cannot show what damaged it. The National Insurance Crime Bureau and the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety have warned that some roofers “may even ask to go up on a roof to inspect it for damage for the sole purpose of intentionally damaging it to get business.” Damage made that way is real damage, photographed on your roof, on the right day. Nothing in the file would be wrong.

Telling hail from a tool takes someone standing on the roof who knows what to look for. That is the insurer’s adjuster, or an inspector you choose. NICB and IBHS put it in one line: “Call your insurance agent first if you believe you need a new roof or repairs because of storm damage.” The photos are a reason to call, not a substitute for the visit.

What the files can tell you

The photos can’t settle the cause. They can still answer two narrower questions that are worth answering before you pass them to anyone.

• When was each photo taken? A phone writes the date and time its clock showed into each photo, usually with the device’s make and model. Our checker reads that in your browser. A phone original comes back “Camera Original” with the capture time printed. A photo of storm damage taken before the storm is a specific question for the roofer. So is a set of “your roof” photos from three different phones when one person says they went up.
• Is it the same picture someone else got? If you manage several houses in the storm’s path and more than one owner gets a roofer’s email, check all the photos together. Any two files that are byte-for-byte the same are marked “Identical file”, whatever they’re named. It only catches exact copies. A cropped or re-saved copy gets a different fingerprint, so a clean result doesn’t mean no photo was reused. We cover that more in repair photos copied from the internet.

Phones can also record where a photo was taken. Our checker does not read or show location. The address question gets answered the same way as in our snow invoice piece: ask for a wide shot with something fixed in frame. For a roof that means the street, a neighbor’s house or a tree you’d recognize. A close-up of one shingle could be anyone’s roof.

Did hail fall there, and when?

NOAA publishes hail reports for free, and there are two places to look.

• Storm Prediction Center storm reports: a daily list of hail, wind and tornado reports, each with a time, a hail size, a place, a county and coordinates. It is quick and it covers yesterday. The page itself says “All Reports Are Considered Preliminary”, times are in UTC, and hail sizes are in hundredths of an inch (“175 = 1.75″”). The SPC’s own FAQ says the list “likely does not contain all severe weather reports for any particular event.”
• NCEI Storm Events Database: the SPC calls it “the official, final data for severe weather reports”, and says it “takes a few months to compile.” Use it for a storm from last season, not last week.

Then set the roofer’s claimed storm date and the photos’ capture dates beside the reports for your county. A report of 1.5-inch hail two miles away on that afternoon supports the story. No report at all is worth a question, but it isn’t an answer.

• Reports are points, hail is a path. A report is where someone saw and measured hail. A hail swath can be narrow, and it can cross your street with nobody reporting it.
• Times can be estimates. Some reports note that the time was estimated from radar, and some come from social media or private weather sensors.
• Old damage looks like new damage in a photo. A storm last week does not mean the dents are from last week.

Colorado: what the contract has to say

Colorado has a roofing contractor law, C.R.S. 6-22-101 to 6-22-105 (we read it in the official Colorado Revised Statutes 2026). It covers roofs on “residential property”: a detached one- or two-family dwelling, or single-family dwellings up to three stories with separate entrances. That includes most rental houses and duplexes. A larger apartment building may fall outside it. Check with your attorney before you rely on it for one.

• Written contract first (6-22-103). Before any work starts, the roofer has to give the owner a signed contract listing the scope, approximate dates and costs, their contact details, and the cancellation and deposit-refund terms. It must also say, in bold, that the roofer holds the owner’s payment in trust until materials are delivered or most of the work is done.
• A way out if the insurer says no (6-22-104). When insurance is paying, the owner “may rescind the contract within seventy-two hours after the property owner receives written notice” that the claim was denied in whole or in part. The roofer then has ten days to refund, less the value of work actually done.
• No covering the deductible (6-22-105). A roofer paid from an insurance claim may not offer to pay, waive or rebate the deductible. If they do, the insurer can disregard their estimate. And a roofer may not act as a public adjuster, though under a valid contract they can discuss the repair scope with the insurer for the owner.

None of these make the photos any truer. They mean the owner can get the insurer’s answer before committing to a roofer. An offer to “take care of your deductible” is a warning sign NICB lists, and in Colorado it’s against the law. Outside Colorado, check your own state. We haven’t reviewed the roofing laws of the other Mountain West states.

Where AI comes into it

AI image tools can now draw a convincing dented shingle, or add damage to a real roof photo. If the file says it was made or edited with AI, through Content Credentials or a tool’s own marker, the checker says “AI Generated” or “AI Edited” and names the tool when the file does. Many files say nothing. We have written about what the file records when a damage photo is AI-edited, and how often it records nothing.

A file with no camera record at all comes back “Can’t Verify”. That is not a fake. It is what happens to an honest photo sent by text or through WhatsApp or Messenger, which strip the record as they send. It means: ask for the original.

A routine for the next storm

1. Tell owners in advance: if a roofer contacts them after a storm, forward it to you and don’t sign anything yet.
2. Ask the roofer for the original photo files (email attachments, not screenshots or a messaging app), including at least one wide shot that shows which house it is.
3. Run the photos through the checker in one batch, together with any other owner’s photos from the same storm. Note capture dates before the storm, any “Identical file” pair and any “Can’t Verify”.
4. Look up the hail reports for your county on the claimed date and the days either side.
5. Call the insurer and get the adjuster out before a contract is signed, whatever the photos and reports say.
6. Save the report with the claim file. It is dated and lists every file’s SHA-256, so if the claim is disputed later, anyone can confirm the file you produce is the one you checked.

The limits, stated plainly

• A photo cannot show whether damage came from hail or from a tool. “Camera Original” means a camera or phone recorded the file and the record is intact. It does not mean the photo shows your roof or that the damage is from this storm. Camera clocks can be set wrong, and camera data can be edited by someone who means to.
• Hail reports are preliminary, incomplete and describe points, not your roof. A missing report is a question, not a finding.
• Our checker gives no confidence score and does not judge a picture by looking at it. A file with no record is not a fake, and a file with no AI marker is not proven real.
• We don’t know how often roofers send misleading photos, and we’re not suggesting most do. Most hail damage reports will be genuine. The point is to know which ones to ask about.
• Colorado statutes were read in the official Colorado Revised Statutes 2026 in October 2026. NOAA pages were read the same month.
• This is not legal advice.

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ImposterShield reads the evidence inside image and video files. It runs in your browser and uploads nothing. If a file has been stripped, it says so. That is the product working, not failing.