Mark,
Some interesting conversations with insurance adjusters. All that I've spoken to say that hail claims are the hardest to deal with and their least liked. The good part is that it is rare that the airplane cannot be flown. The hard part is figuring out what should be done with the airplane. A lot of times the adjuster and the owner talk over the options and reach some sort of agreement.
The least liked among owners is the spot or partial paint job; it almost never matches. The owner may hold out for replacing skins and repainting the entire airplane, but that can come close to the stated value. Plus, most of the time, minor hail damage disappears in a couple of years through normal heating and cooling cycles plus flight loads.
The Cardinal I owned had been hail damaged before I bought it. The owners settled with the insurer for a new paint job. It was beautiful. Over the time I owned the airplane the hundreds of little dings on it disappeared, leaving only a few that had been larger even visible, and even they had gotten smaller.
Now, hail damage in flight...yikes.
Best regards,
Rick
