Just a heads-up:
Good luck. BTDT … more than once. Car, too.
I just filed a claim with State Farm yesterday. The way they figure your deductible now is 1/2% of the insured value of the home.
First off, don’t depend on any(or very many) companies to go up there and say “Nope, you’re good. No work here”
They’re certainly in the biz for clients.
They will find a problem. I’ve never had a work man come out and say there wasn’t something they could do.
I’ve had them say they couldn’t do it(rare).
I’ve had them say they were booked for a period of time, if I could wait…yada, yada.
Get a friend or someone you trust in the construction/roofing business to look at it.
Don’t hire a roofer who knocks on your door cold, especially after a big weather event.
Don’t give anyone money til the job is finished. And go up and look. Or have someone you trust look.
There’s a slew of fly by night roofing companies(?) after tornados, hail storms and hurricanes that follow the weather.
Homeowners insurance is a strange business. I don’t understand the way they work. I just know they are not exactly on your side. Their side is the bottom line.
Good luck.
(PS, if it’s an asphalt roof and you don’t see copious tile missing or the ground is not covered with broken shingles, wait. You have some time.
OTOH, Go look in the attic. If you see wet spots on the wood, go buy tarps til you can get it done)
I suspect that it’s a bad, or even worse, in the home insurance sector. There is a general attitude that insurance companies are fair game and inflating a claim “doesn’t hurt anyone”. Not only that, but you’ve been paying them all this money for years and never made a claim - “They owe me!!!”
You get burgled and suddenly that crappy old laptop you lost becomes last year’s model. Your roof is damaged and you do a deal with the roofer to inflate his bill by the amount of the deductible.
This. About six weeks ago, I received a notice from my insurance company (Traveler’s) that my home insurance premiums were increasing. I called my agent, who was able to find me a better deal with another company (Cincinnati) for just a slight increase in my then-current premiums. My agent explained that Traveler’s had to raise their rates because they had paid so many claims on both coasts (fire and hurricane), that they had to raise their rates across the entire country.
I would very surprised if that was “the way”. 1/2% is a common deductible, but it’s not the only option. (Though it may be one of the only affordable options.)
My deductible is 5% - which sounds like a lot of money, but I’ve surely saved more than that in premiums over the 38 years I’ve owned this house.
I only have two insurance policies: The car, which is a legal requirement and carries a £500 excess, and the house and contents, so we won’t be homeless if it burns down. I have to pay the first £100 of any claim.
I carry a CAD$10,000 deductible on my house which roughly works out to about 0.75% of replacements house+contents. In 17 years, we have made no claims.
I have state farm as well. They, like most every other insurer, have a range of deductible options you can choose from, the choice of which will in turn determine your premiums. You can choose percentages of the house value or absolute dollar amounts. I carry a higher 2% deductible on my house and it has reduced my premiums substantially.
Could be but that is what the claims adjuster explained to me. He did not state any other options. I read through my policy and that is what it states also.
A claims adjuster is only involved in handling your current claim under your current policy.
Your policy will have exactly one deductible. Or maybe one for most things and special different deductibles for certain things like roofs or mold remediation. In any case there is only one deductible applicable to whatever problem you’re now making a claim over.
But …
Before you bought the policy there was probably a range of deductibles available. The proposal the sales agent gave you should have included info about all of them. It sounds like maybe your agent steered you to one choice without adequately explaining all your choices.
Even if your carrier really does only offer one deductible option, there are plenty of other carriers who’d have different options available. It does pay to shop around.
Had the insurance adjustor out here Here is a simplified version of how insurance is a scam
total damage to the house: $14000
Minus depreciation: $8400
Minus deductable: $5000
Total payout to repair our roof/window screens/paint/AC cover: $600
Yes when all is said and done and thousands of dollars every year in premiums, we get $600 to repair our hail damage.
It sounds like your policy is for Actual Cash Value (ACV), which factors in depreciation. The other option is Replacement Cost Value (RCV), which pays the cost for a new roof no matter how old it is. You can get both types of policies, with RCV being more expensive.
If your agent went over all this when you first got your policy and you didn’t pay attention, then I guess that’s on you. But if they pointed you toward these options – ACV and a high deductible – without explaining it, then it’s time to find a new agent. Their value is making sure you understand what you’re buying and it’s the right option for you, not the generic “best choice.” A high deductible is right for me; it might not be right for you.
I am considering that. Also, we are positive the previous owner replaced the roof just before we bought it 11 years ago but insurance is claiming it is 24 years old. No clue how we would document the correct age.
Do you have contact information for the previous owner?
Your local municipality probably requires a permit, so you can check there if the previous owners can’t produce a receipt.
Depending on whether unpermitted work is vanishingly rare or the 90% norm in that jurisdiction.
Update: the disclosures say the roof was done in 2008. The insurance inspector said it was 24 years old. That 7 year difference means over $1500. Two things:
Would have been nice if they asked me to have that paperwork ahead of time but I didn’t know and they keep their process obscure. I told him the roof was fairly new when we bought it. I had no clue they needed an exact year.
Apparently what they sent me was a final draft and according to my sales representative, if I want to get that depreciation back, they send me the $$$ after we repair the roof and talk to claims, he has nothing to do with it.
Just so I understand, are you working with an ‘independent agent’, one who represents a bunch of companies and will (or should) work to find the best one for you, or is it a sales representative of a specific insurance company?