Wind and Hail Deductibles on a Texas Home

The percentage applies to the insured value of the house, not the size of the loss. On a $525,000 home at 2%, a $10,000 hail claim pays nothing at all.

Most people meet this number twice. Once as a percentage on a renewal nobody reads, and once as a cheque that came back far smaller than the damage.

The gap between those two moments is almost always the same misunderstanding, and it takes one sentence to fix.

The percentage applies to what your house is insured for. Not to the size of the claim.

The arithmetic, first

Find Coverage A on your declarations page — the dwelling limit, what the house itself is insured for. Multiply it by the percentage next to wind and hail. That is your deductible.

Coverage A	1%	2%	5%
$350,000	$3,500	$7,000	$17,500
$475,000	$4,750	$9,500	$23,750
$525,000	$5,250	$10,500	$26,250

Now the sentence that does the work.

At 2% on a $525,000 home, a $10,000 hail claim pays nothing. The deductible is $10,500. The loss is smaller than the deductible, so the policy pays zero — and you have a claim conversation on record for a payout that never existed.

Not $9,800, which is what you would get if the 2% came off the claim. Zero. The deductible was fixed by what the house is insured for, months before the storm formed, and it does not shrink to fit a smaller loss.

Why it is a percentage at all

Brief, because it is context rather than the point.

Ordinary property deductibles are flat dollar amounts. Wind and hail is usually a percentage, and the reason is that hail is not like the other perils. A house fire is one house. A hailstorm is every house in its path on the same afternoon, across a carrier’s whole book at once.

After several severe Texas storm-loss years, percentage deductibles are how carriers keep the retained share of a catastrophe proportional to the value at risk — and how they keep writing in a market where losses have run ahead of what the rates assumed. Two per cent has become the de-facto Texas standard.

Two deductibles, two different triggers

This is the part most likely to be new, and it is where the vocabulary matters.

	What triggers it	Typical form
All other perils	Fire, theft, burst pipe, vandalism	A flat dollar amount
Wind and hail	Any wind or hail loss	A percentage of Coverage A
Named storm	Only a storm the National Weather Service has named	A percentage, often higher

A single policy can carry all three, at three different amounts. Almost nobody knows that until a claim makes it matter.

The critical detail: the trigger on the third row is the naming, not the category of weather. People commonly assume the higher percentage is reserved for hurricanes, and that assumption costs money — what actually switches it on is the National Weather Service assigning a name. A storm can be severe without being named, and named while still well short of hurricane strength.

The practical consequence is that the same roof damage can carry very different deductibles depending on how the event that caused it is classified. When a storm is named partway through its life, or damage occurs at the edge of a named system, that classification is genuinely arguable — and the argument is worth real money.

Where to find yours

On the declarations page, in the deductibles section. Three things to look for:

Which deductibles are listed. All of them, not just the one you remember.
What value each percentage applies to. Normally Coverage A, but confirm it.
Whether a separate named-storm line exists behind the wind and hail one.

And the warning that makes this article necessary at all: the percentage very often appears without its dollar equivalent anywhere on the document. Nothing on the page will tell you that 2% means $10,500. Do the multiplication yourself and write the number somewhere you will find it.

North of Houston, this is a hail question

Inland Harris and Montgomery County — The Woodlands, Spring, Cypress, Katy, Tomball — carry wind and hail on the homeowners policy. There is no separate windstorm policy inland and there is nothing to buy back.

Which makes this percentage the most consequential number on a north-corridor policy, because hail is the corridor’s actual peril rather than a theoretical one. On 9 June 2025 a hailstorm ran across The Woodlands, Creekside Park, Augusta Pines, Hufsmith, Tomball and Spring with golf-ball stones and larger. A great many of those claims were disappointing for exactly the reason this article exists.

Our north Houston article covers the corridor specifically — what falls on each side of the line, and why a Woodlands house is priced against a coastal narrative that does not describe it.

East of Highway 146, it is a different question

Inside the designated catastrophe area — the Harris County city limits east of State Highway 146: La Porte, Morgan’s Point, Pasadena, Seabrook and Shoreacres — wind is commonly excluded from the homeowners policy and bought back separately, usually through TWIA.

That is a different structure with a different deductible arrangement, and our windstorm insurance page covers it properly.

Either way, flood is a third policy again. Storm surge is flood, not wind, whatever pushed it inland — see the flood insurance page.

Is the claim worth filing?

The question everybody has once they have done the multiplication. This is the trade-off, not a recommendation:

Below the deductible, the policy pays nothing. A $7,000 loss against a $9,500 deductible produces no payment, and the arithmetic does not care how annoying that is.

Loss history follows the property. It is visible to underwriters at your next renewal and to the next owner’s carrier after that, and in the current market claims frequency is one of the reasons non-renewals are issued.

A claim can be recorded even when nothing is paid, depending on how it is handled.

But damage near or above the deductible changes everything, and so does damage that will worsen. A roof that is failing does not get cheaper by waiting, and an unaddressed leak becomes a maintenance issue a future carrier will hold against you.

The useful move is to find out what the damage actually is before deciding — and to know your deductible in dollars before you make the call, rather than during it.

Roof age interacts with all of this directly, because an older roof settled at actual cash value has depreciation subtracted before the deductible comes off. Our roof age article works that subtraction through in full.

If your building is commercial

Different reader, same mechanic, different scale — and a genuinely different set of questions about coinsurance, multi-building schedules and business interruption waiting periods. That is covered in our commercial wind and hail deductible article.

At your next review

Bring the declarations page. We will tell you what each percentage applies to, whether a named-storm line is sitting behind the wind and hail one, and what the whole thing converts to in dollars — which is the only form of the number that is any use before a storm.

The full coverage picture is on our homeowners insurance page.

Common questions

Is a 2% wind and hail deductible 2% of the damage?

No. It is 2% of your dwelling coverage — Coverage A on the declarations page. On a home insured for $500,000 that is $10,000, and it stays $10,000 whether the damage is $12,000 or $120,000. The deductible was fixed by what the house is insured for, before the storm arrived, and it does not shrink to fit a smaller claim.

What is the difference between a wind/hail deductible and a named-storm deductible?

The wind and hail deductible applies to wind and hail losses generally. The named-storm deductible is triggered only when the National Weather Service has named the storm, and it can sit on the same policy at a different — usually higher — percentage. The trigger is the naming, not the category of weather.

Can I lower my wind and hail deductible?

Sometimes, for a higher premium, and availability depends on the carrier, the roof and the location. It is a question worth raising specifically at renewal rather than assuming the structure on your current declarations page is the only one on offer.

Do homes north of Houston have wind and hail coverage on the homeowners policy?

Inland, yes — wind and hail is normally included, subject to this percentage deductible. East of State Highway 146, inside the designated catastrophe area, it is commonly excluded from the homeowners policy and bought back separately. The Woodlands, Spring, Cypress, Katy and Tomball are all well inland of that line.

Should I file a hail claim below my deductible?

It will not pay anything, because the deductible exceeds the loss. Loss history also follows the property and can affect future placement, so it is worth working through the arithmetic before filing rather than after. That is a trade-off to weigh, not advice either way — and if the damage is near or above the deductible the calculation changes completely.

Where do I find my deductible?

On the declarations page, in the deductibles section. It is very often shown only as a percentage, with the dollar equivalent printed nowhere on the document. Multiply it by your Coverage A yourself and write the number down.

Sources: TDI — Home insurance; TDI — Residential property insurance (consumer bill CB025); TWIA — Frequently Asked Questions; Martin Roofing & Solar — 9 June 2025 hailstorm across The Woodlands, Tomball and Spring. Verified 4 August 2026.

General information about Texas filing rules, not legal advice and not a quote. Requirements change; confirm your own through the Texas DPS License Eligibility system before acting. Published 4 August 2026.