Homeowners look up after a storm, see shingles still lying flat, and conclude the roof is fine. Then two winters later there is a stain on a bedroom ceiling and the claim window has closed.
What hail actually does
An asphalt shingle is a mat carrying a layer of asphalt, topped with granules that protect the asphalt from ultraviolet light. Hail does not usually punch through it. Hail bruises it: the impact fractures the mat and knocks granules loose, leaving the asphalt exposed to sun it was never meant to take. The shingle keeps water out that season and the one after. It ages at several times its normal rate in those bare patches, and eventually it fails there first.
From the ground, a bruised roof and a healthy roof look identical. From on the roof, a bruise is obvious: a dark, soft-looking circle with the granules gone, often with a matching dent in the gutter, the downspout, or the metal vent caps. Those soft metal surfaces are the tell. Hail big enough to dent a vent cap is big enough to bruise a shingle.
How big the hail has to be
The threshold that matters for shingles is roughly an inch, which is the same size the National Weather Service uses to call a storm severe. Ada County averages one or two severe thunderstorms a year. That is not a constant barrage, but it means an inch-plus hail event is an ordinary occurrence here rather than a freak one, and most roofs in the valley have taken at least one.
The clock you are actually racing
Your policy sets the filing deadline for a storm claim, and it is usually shorter than people expect — check your own declarations page rather than trusting a roofer's rule of thumb. What is true regardless: once the deadline passes the conversation gets much harder, because the insurer will argue the damage came from a later storm or from ordinary wear. So note the date when a storm goes through, and get the roof looked at even if nothing is leaking, because leaking is a lagging indicator.
What an inspection should produce
Photographs of the damage, with something in frame for scale. A count of impacts on each slope, because adjusters think in terms of impacts per square. Photographs of the soft metal, the gutters and the vents. And a written assessment you keep, whether or not you file and whether or not you ever hire the person who wrote it.
If someone inspects your roof and hands you nothing in writing, you did not get an inspection. You got a sales call.