IBHS Tests Shingle Performance Against Hail, Shares Scorecard

Popular Shingles Rated as "Impact Resistant" Do Not Perform Equally

Across the country, year after year, hailstorms are pounding roofs and causing damage. Today, Minnesota homeowners in the Delano community are assessing the damage from Monday's giant hail. One year ago, residents in Colorado Springs were doing the same. In between, hundreds of other communities were impacted by hail, too.

Impact-resistant shingles can prevent avoidable damage during hailstorms; however, new research from the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) details how impact-resistant shingles perform in real-world conditions.

Consumers deserve to have confidence that shingles labeled as "impact resistant" live up to expectations. After years of field and lab research, IBHS has released the first performance scorecard so contractors and consumers can make informed decisions when choosing shingles. The IBHS Performance Standard for Impact Resistant Shingles outlines a new test mimicking how hail will attack a roof during severe storms.  

"Consumers invest in impact-resistant shingles because they want more protection against roof damage. They deserve to know which products can deliver that durability," says IBHS President and CEO Roy Wright. "High-performing impact resistant shingles can prevent avoidable damage when hail attacks roofs, and we are pleased to deliver the scorecard from our first round of tests."

The IBHS test results include eight common impact-resistant shingles that were available in the market in 2018. While each of the products tested bears an impact-resistant label, product performance ranged from Excellent to Poor when faced with the scientifically replicated real-world conditions in the IBHS lab.

To develop this state-of-the-art test standard, IBHS researchers gathered, weighed, measured, and 3-D scanned thousands of hailstones and then successfully replicated them in large volumes in the IBHS lab.

"Hail losses have grown to over $10-billion annually, and much of this damage is avoidable. We have devoted years to better understanding the scientific characteristics of hail, replicating those characteristics in the lab, and analyzing how shingles perform against them," says Dr. Tanya Brown-Giammanco, managing director of research at IBHS.

The performance results, publicly available at IBHS.org, highlight strong performers and raise the bar for others. Additional tests for products recently introduced to the market in 2019 will be completed, and the scorecard updated in the coming months. From there, IBHS plans to retest products and refresh the scorecard every two years.

About the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) 

The IBHS mission is to conduct objective, scientific research to identify and promote effective actions that strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss.

Learn more about IBHS at DisasterSafety.org.