Roanoke, Texas · Wise, Tarrant & Denton counties
Hail hit your car. Get every dent documented first.
I am Lance Rankin. I inspect your vehicle for free, photograph and count every dent panel by panel, and write you a paintless dent repair estimate you take to your own insurance company. You file the claim yourself — it is a ten-minute phone call. What most people are short of is not a phone call. It is the documentation to back it up.
What North Texas Hail Guy actually is
North Texas Hail Guy is Lance Rankin, based in Roanoke, Texas. He inspects hail-damaged cars and trucks free of charge, documents the damage panel by panel, and prepares a written paintless dent repair estimate that the owner takes to their own insurance company. He can attend the insurer's inspection as the repair shop's estimator, and prepares supplemental estimates when damage is missed. He is not a licensed public insurance adjuster and does not file, adjust or negotiate insurance claims. He serves Wise, Tarrant, Denton and Parker counties. Phone: ' + PHONE + '.
That is a deliberately narrow job, and it is worth being clear about it. I do not own a body shop and I am not trying to sell you one — the repairs are done by partnered paintless dent repair facilities that I choose, watch and can walk away from. And I am not your insurance adjuster. Your claim stays in your name, filed by you, because in Texas that is the only lawful way for somebody who is paid on the repair to be involved at all. What I do is the part almost nobody does well: getting the damage counted and written down properly, before anyone puts a number on it.
Insurance companies do not underpay hail claims because adjusters are dishonest. They underpay because a hail estimate written in a parking lot in bad light misses panels. Roofs get missed. Hoods get counted at half the real dent count. Nobody catches it, the claim closes, and the owner eats the difference. The fix is documentation, and documentation is a person's job.
Plain disclosure
Lance Rankin is not a licensed public insurance adjuster and is not an attorney. North Texas Hail Guy does not file, adjust, negotiate or settle insurance claims and does not represent you in dealings with your insurance company. What I do is inspect and document hail damage and prepare a written paintless dent repair estimate. I am paid a commission by the repair facility when a vehicle is repaired there.
What I will never tell you
That I am handling your claim, that I will make your deductible disappear, that a hail claim can never affect your rates, or that I can get you a diminished-value payout after a hail repair. Those are four of the most common promises in this business and every one of them has a problem in Texas. I have written up exactly why on the out-of-pocket page, the deductible page and the Texas claims page.
How a hail claim actually goes
Four steps. You keep the claim in your own name the whole way through.
Free 10-minute inspection
I come to you, or you meet me in Roanoke. I go over the vehicle panel by panel in the right light and count the dents. If the damage is not worth filing on, I say so and that is the end of it.
Every dent documented
Hail claims get underpaid when panels get missed. I build a written dent map - panel by panel, dent count, size - photograph it, and turn it into a line-by-line paintless dent repair estimate. Those documents are yours to keep, whether or not you repair with us.
You file. I hand you the evidence
You call your insurance company and open the claim yourself - it is about a ten-minute call - and you go into it holding photographs and a written estimate. If you want, we go through the documents together first so you know exactly what you are describing. If your policy includes rental reimbursement, we arrange the rental as part of the claim.
I meet your adjuster, then the repair
When your insurer sends someone to look at the vehicle, you are welcome to have me there as your shop's estimator, to walk the panels and answer questions about my estimate. Then your vehicle goes to a paintless dent repair facility I have vetted, and I check the finished work before you collect it.
What hail repair costs, before you call anybody
Most hail sites will not put a number on a page. Here are the published industry ranges, so you can sanity-check any estimate you are handed — including mine.
| Damage | Published range | Usually paid by |
|---|---|---|
| Single door ding | $195 – $295 | You, out of pocket |
| Medium dent, golf-ball size | $250 – $450 | You, out of pocket |
| Light hail damage | $500 – $1,200 | Often near the deductible |
| Extensive hail damage | $1,200 – $4,000+ | Comprehensive claim |
| Severe hail, large truck or SUV | Above the published ranges | Comprehensive claim |
Ranges are published industry figures, not a quote. A real number depends on dent count, dent size, how many panels are hit, and whether the panels are steel or aluminum. See the full cost breakdown and what drives it.
Why this keeps happening to you
You are not imagining it. Between 2010 and 2026, Tarrant County recorded more days with severe hail — one inch or larger — than any other county in Texas.
Days with hail of 1.00 inch or larger reported, 2010–2026, computed from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Storm Events Database.
Texas led the entire country for major hail events in 2025 with 902 of them, and has led the nation for ten years running. State Farm alone paid $1.4 billion in Texas hail claims in 2025 — more than any other state.
Locally it is concentrated. March through June accounts for 87% of every hail report in this area, and April alone is a third of the year. If your car is going to get hit, it is overwhelmingly likely to happen in spring.
See every major North Texas hail event since 2010, with dates.
"$0 out of pocket" — the honest version
On most North Texas hail claims the customer pays their comprehensive deductible and the insurance company pays the rest of the repair. When you see "$0 out of pocket" advertised, what is usually meant is that you write no check beyond the deductible, and that some shops will work with you on the deductible itself. In Texas, how that is handled matters — and any shop that offers to make your deductible vanish should be asked exactly how.
I would rather explain this than slogan it at you. Your comprehensive deductible is a term of your policy, and it belongs to your insurance company, not to a repair shop. Texas has a criminal statute against absorbing deductibles on property claims — roofs, buildings — and by its own definition that law reaches only real property, not auto policies. No Texas court has ruled on it in the auto context. But the absence of that specific law is not the same as a green light, because the way shops usually make a deductible disappear is by padding the estimate that goes to the carrier, and padding an estimate is insurance fraud under Texas Penal Code section 35.02.
So here is what I will tell you: I will get the damage documented properly and write an estimate that stands up, I will read your declarations page with you so you know what your deductible actually is, and I will be straight with you about what any shop is doing if they tell you that you owe nothing at all. The full explanation is here.
Towns I cover
I am in Roanoke, on Haslet Roanoke Road. Most of these are inside twenty minutes. If your town is not listed, call anyway — I probably still come.
Straight answers
Do I have to pay anything for the inspection?
No. The inspection is free and there is no obligation attached to it. If your vehicle does not have enough hail damage to be worth a claim, I will tell you that and you will not hear from me again.
Do you do the repair yourself?
No, and I am careful to say so. I inspect, document and write the estimate. The paintless dent repair itself is performed at a partnered facility in North Texas that I have vetted, and I check the finished work before you collect the vehicle.
Will I get a rental car?
Only if you carry rental reimbursement on your policy. That is an optional coverage in Texas, and it is not something a repair shop can create for you. If you do not have it, paintless dent repair is usually days rather than the weeks a conventional body shop repair takes, which is worth knowing when you are paying for your own car.
Can my insurance company make me use their shop?
No. Texas Insurance Code section 1952.301 says an insurer may not limit your right to choose the repair person or facility, and section 1952.302 says an insurer or adjuster may not even suggest to you that you must use a shop from their preferred list. They can give you a list. They cannot require it. There is one narrow exception, section 1952.307: a limitation stands only if it is clearly and prominently displayed on the face of the policy and you gave written consent to it when you bought it. Almost nobody has. What they are not obliged to do is pay more than a reasonable amount for the repair — which is exactly why documenting the damage properly is the whole game.
How long does a hail repair take?
Published industry figures put light hail damage at around a day with paintless dent repair and extensive damage at up to five days or more. Conventional body work with paint runs one to three weeks, because every painted panel needs roughly two days of cure time. That difference is the main practical argument for PDR.
What if my car is too far gone to fix?
Then we talk about the total-loss path instead, and there is a piece of Texas law worth knowing: the state's salvage-title statute expressly excludes hail from the definition of damage, so hail alone does not brand your title. Your insurer can still decide to settle the claim as a total loss and pay you actual cash value. Here is how that works.
Ten minutes tells you where you stand
Free inspection, no obligation. If your vehicle does not have a claimable hail loss, I will tell you that and you will not hear from me again.