Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
herus_gw

New roof - insurance - general question

herus
15 years ago

Our home is about 15 years old and two contractors have visited and say I have a very good shot at getting a claim approved for a full re-roof. At least three other homes in the subdivision have been approved due to hail and general weather damage (but none catastrophic as in a hurricane, etc).

The two quotes are about 10% apart. The insurance company wants me to pick one company (they have not seen these quotes and don't want to right now) to co-review when they visit to assess the claim. The insurance folks were already out earlier in the year (no contractor present) but said damage did not exceed the $1K deduct. Since then we have had at least two hailstorms.

So... which contractor should I pick to review with insurance adjuster? I don't know if this is a naive question so please no scathing comments. Really all I need to get done is a new or mostly new roof and I know I'll be paying for some things, but would like to present this in the most favorable light. Is a higher quote more likely to get approved or a lower one, or does it not matter?

Comments (3)

  • live_wire_oak
    15 years ago

    Either may or may not get approved if your insurance adjuster has already seen your roof prior to this claim. I'd bet that he'll still tell you that your damage doesn't equal your deductible. Even if they pay, it's pro-rated and your roof's life is 3/4 of the way over (20 year shingles). Even if you have a 10K roof, you're likely to only see a $1500 check. (25% of 10K - the 1K deductible)And, your rates will most likely go up or they will cancel you. Are you really sure you want to pursue this for the minimal dollar amount you're likely to get out of it?

  • fandlil
    15 years ago

    If the roof is old -- close to the end of its expected life -- that will certainly figure in the amount the insurance company will give you to repair the damage. But another way of looking at this is that the hail storm was a sort of blessing in disguise because it provided a financial incentive to redo the roof.

  • dickross
    15 years ago

    Read your policy. Standard texas homeowners policy pays for full cost regardles of age. If you had a functional roof (ie it mostly kept the rain out) yesterday, and you don't have a functional roof today. They pay the full cost minus your deductable. mine was 1%.
    They replaced a 15 year old wood shingle roof that was in really bad shape. Wood shingles don't do well on the gulf coast. A convienient hailstorm added a few dents and the adjuster said "here, have some money".
    They replaced an 8 year old timberline roof because of some hail dents on another house. Didn't look that bad to me, but i'm not going to turn down money when it's offered.

    Policies may be different in other areas, but regardless, they don't charge anything to have an adjuster look at it.