As we all know the economy has been in trouble for a few months and peoples budgets are getting tighter and tighter. The past year or two the roofing industry has seen price increases on asphalt based roofing materials that haven’t been experienced for over 20 years to my personal knowledge. Insurance company’s have made minimal efforts to raise their estimates, but for a legitimate contractor these efforts are not enough.
How does the rising cost’s of roofing materials effect your hail damage claim?
The answer to that question is simple. It should have no effect on your claim!
Unfortunately this is not the reality that many home owners and legitimate contractors are experiencing when reviewign insurance estimates provided by a claims adjuster. I personally have claim paperwork on file from a few years ago, and recently I pulled up a few to see what the cost difference’s are between the old claim paperwork and today’s.
The results didn’t shock me as I found that any increases in pricing the insurance company is paying today versus a few years ago is negligible at best!
The facts are that replacement cost insurance is supposed to pay you 100% of the cost to replace your roof in the currant market. Market conditions must be taken into consideration such as, material cost’s, transportation cost’s, and hiring a reputable contractor who actually runs a business instead of guys who roof out of the back of their beat up truck.
Usually your insurance company will ask you to get estimates and will actually imply that this is required and is your responsibility. This is not true because it is not stated in insurance policies that insured’s are required to obtain estimates when they have a claim.
The opposite is actually true. If you file a hail damage claim, or any claim for that matter it is your insurance company’s responsibility to evaluate your claim and provide you with their estimate for repairs. Albeit their estimate is just that and it’s usually way below market value.
Make no mistake your low insurance estimate is no mistake, it is designed to be low on purpose. The desired result that insurance companies hope for is that you find those two guys I mentioned earlier to do your roof for far less then what you deserve. In reality your insurance company does not care if who you hire a quality contractor or not, they just want to pay as little as possible.
I can’t blame them for trying to minimize their cost of doing business. BUT!
Maximizing profit at the expense of the much higher calling of indemnity is wrong and deceptive to say the least.
Protecting yourself from getting underpaid is very important and there are ways to make sure you get paid every single penny you need to replace your roof to the state it was in before the hail damage.
Here’s how.
- Never get estimates. They will only be used against you by your insurance company.
- Interview contractors who are experienced in helping home owners with insurance claims. A regular roofer won’t do.
- Choose the contractor you feel is most qualified and sign their preliminary repair agreement. Note: Real insurance restoration contractors always use some form of preliminary repair agreement, it allows them to work with your insurance company until a fair price is worked out.
- Inform your insurance adjuster you have signed an agreement with your contractor of choice and direct them to work out the details of the scope and cost to replace your roof.
- Firmly and politely inform your adjuster that you won’t be considering any other contractors to perform your restoration so don’t bother to call and request further estimates from other contractors. This usually happens after they receive your contractors estimate for a fair cost replacement value which means they must pay more. Its simply a ploy and even a scare tactic to try and pay less based on what they perceive as fair market value from those two guys roofing out of the back of their truck. Your insurance company or any one else representing them have no right to interfere with your contract, that is tort and it’s illegal.
- Do not be intimidated no matter what your insurance company might say to you about what they will or will not pay. They try and use the fact that they have all the money as leverage against you and this is unconscionable behavior to say the least.
- Remember to use tact and bearing when speaking with your insurance company. Getting into verbal arguments and confrontations only server to raise barriers in the claims process.
Remember these important factors and you will have a contractor who can install a quality roof at a reasonable cost that will allow them to stay in business and cover their warranty.
Russell Hayes
Restore My Home Construction
Tags: hail damage · increase roof cost · insurance claim · insurance company · roof · roof cost
Many home owners need to realize that hail this size causes unrepairable damage to most 
inspection has a few years experience in assessing hail damage. Unfortunately there is very little in the way of ongoing training for assessing hail damage in the roofing industry so be careful who you have doing your inspection.
