Free roof and siding - really?

Our house is 23 years old - guy next door is 24 years and waited 2 years from State Farm Insurance for a free roof- hail damage = free roof.

Wife says we have damage and I tell her we have a 23 year old roof that needs replacement.  It's our responsibility to buy our roof not stick it to State Farm.

After arguing I take her side and call the company - answering service.  We will see how this goes later in the week.

Anybody play this game?

Don't try this in FL.  It's so hard to get home owners insurance you avoid any claims in fear that they'll drop you.

Yeah...the entire state of FL played this game. And lost big-time. Go do some on line research to see where it ends.

I was waiting to see when this disease would spread to the rest of the country.

Brother lives in FL, home insurance went up $500/month because of this game that is driven by roofing and siding contractors and lawyers. They all make out like the bandits they are.

In the short term, you would be dumb not to take the free roof.

I talked to a GRM member thats based out of central Florida and is an adjustor for an ins company after a hurricane damaged mine. It was around 23 years old then. He told me I was at end of life and it was on me as the insurance would deny it. 

I went ahead and paid myself. $30k later I got a discount on the premium due to having a new roof. 

What Stampie says is very real down here, that's why I looked for advise from someone in the biz. 

Just an odd note to add, we were just down near Lake Cumberland, KY and upwards of 90% of the houses we saw had metal roofing.  More durable?  Cheaper?  A good salesman in the area?

In reply to triumph7 :

Metal roofing used to be the exception in Ontario, now it is at the point where you don't notice it as unusual and I suspect will replace asphalt in the next 15 years or so. 

Yup, Florida home insurance is a mess. From a friend in the biz: bogus roofing claims. 

In reply to triumph7 :

Lots of metal roof down here. In my opinion its superior to clay tiles, downside is that your cell signal will suffer. 

In reply to NOHOME :

$500 a month?

I pay $600 a year.

I used to run a territory for a roofing company in Atlanta and this is very possible. Email me if you'd like. I'm I longer in the game and unsure of Florida rules- though I do have a buddy who is up in sales at a supply house and probably can get you the info. 

Duke said:

In reply to NOHOME :

$500 a month?

I pay $600 a year.

 

I'd love to pay $600/year ...

No free lunch...

I had a roofer come look at a real problem I was having and suddenly he started saying "Oh yeah I can fix that but this over here looks like hail damage what insurance do you have?" 

Um, no thanks dude. 

If you see hail damage by all means explain the problem and write a separate quote, and even mention that homeowners insurance may cover hail damage. But don't base your quote on my insurance coverage.

This just came in the mail. 

Slippery said:

This just came in the mail. 

The thing is, YOU are not filing the claim.  The roofer gets you to sign a piece of paper that effectively makes THEM the person filing the claim. So the homeowner is off the hook.

Since legal bills start to pile up very quickly and FL has some kind of a 7x multiplier in the settlement for legal cost, the insurance companies just buy you a roof to save a lot of money, But like all appeasement in the face of tyranny, it just encourages the bad guy.

And yeah, that is $500 extra  every single month for a person who has never filed a claim. "I am buying someone a pickup truck that I don't get to drive" was my brother's comment. 

Ironic that this was all spun off a policy that was meant to protect home owners against insurance companies. 

tldr, i made a legitimate roof claim in FL and was never punished for it. 
 

We made a claim for our roof after the hurricanes years ago. This is in Florida, Volusia co. Our roof was older but still in great shape.  Roofers i know personally said they saw nothing to be concerned about with it. After the storms we had lost shingles and had 2 leaks that messed up the ceiling inside a bit. My insurer had no issues and cut me a check for the new roof, minus deductible.  I had the same insurer for another 3 years or so after the pay out. My rates sucked(they sucked prior to the claim), so with my new super safe roof i shopped insurance and was able to save a ton. I asked the new insurer about having made a claim previously and if i remember right, she said it makes no difference and it was illegal to discriminate based on claims, i think. Either way, it never came up at all and i had my choice of insurers. 
 

after having just eaten the 5000$ deductible for the roof claim, i was able to get a tiny deductible, like 500$, and better coverage for less $ per month. 
 

also i recommend using a local small insurance  person. They did all the work, explained everything nicely and saved me $. Small family business insurance co. 

Slippery said:

This just came in the mail. 

Isn't it the insurance co inspectors job to make sure things are legit? Why threaten the homeowner.  Punish shady inspectors. 
 

insurance companies would hang up on me when i was shopping insurance once they found out my roof was over 20 years old, even though it had plenty of life left. Some would not talk to you if the roof was over 15 years old. 

I had insurance replace our nearly 20 yr old roof last year. We had a significant leak that started and damaged the ceiling in our main living area. At first I was going to nearly wipe out our emergency fund for this emergency but there was very obvious hail damage that the insurance adjuster confirmed so they covered the interior repairs and the new roof. The claim had to be made within 1 year of the last hail reported for the area (I was at 11 months). I was nervous to go this route for fear of losing our homeowners insurance or our premiums going up. My fears were unfounded. I have been with this insurance company since I started driving in 2002. I have spent a lot of money with them over the years and this was the first homeowners claim. Our premium went up a negligible amount. I've only had 2 minor auto claims for door dings on brand new cars I wanted to have fixed. So I think it depends on the situation.

In reply to karplus2 :

Important anecdote there, as you're in the same state as OP

Hmmm.  As an insurance adjuster in Florida I could write half a book on this, however people have touched on some hot points.   

If you have legit damage, file a claim, dont sign anything with a contractor without reading it VERY VERY carefully first.  

The problem IMO wasnt legitimate claims in Florida.  It was the threat of lawsuits that would push every roof through, legitimate or not due to legal fees / multipliers. Quite litterally even if there was undisputed legitimate damage to total the roof and the carrier estimates for say $500 per square and the contractor says $1000+ per square they had the option of pay it or face a lawsuit.  Repeat X hundreds of thousand people and you end up with where Florida is at.  There is no free lunch.  

For reference I am paying $7k per year for my policy with an older roof that is in relatively good shape but due to the age my premiums are high.  

I talked to the sales dude on the phone.  I threw all the concerns back to him.

He comes out and inspects the roof.  If he sees damage we bring out the insurance guy to look at it and if the insurance company agrees we get a roof.  Many times the insurance company disagrees and you buy your own roof.  So far legit. 

I also mentioned I heard the estimator makes damage when inspecting.  He liked that comment. 

In the end I have savings to pay for my roof - I'm not a fan of not taking responsibility.

One thing to mention is that I have rarely met a saleaman say they have found no damage.  I intentionally write salesman because thats often who is sent to your house.   They are not there to actually evaluate damage versus sell you on their services.  

I have had salesmen (persons) directly tell me that their job is not to find or point out the damage, its my job to find it, if I find none they say, thats fine we'll just send it to the lawyers. 

I would recommend if you are able, inspect with them or at least look at their process.   Looks for creased or missing shingles, if they advise of hail look for collateral damages.  If it damaged the shingles it likely damage/denting or left spatter (think astroid shaped marks) on the vents, HVAC unit, transformer box, broad leaf plants etc.  Just use some common sense.  

The flip side is my insurance hired a company to tell them my AC died of old age-right at the moment lightning struck our home. The AC inspection for hire company advertises that less than 1% of AC claims are legitimate. I think what they mean to say is they find less than 1% of claims legitimate. I ended up crawling around my attic following the lines until I found the spot where the high pressure line arced to the conduit for the main power feed to the panel. That combined with the burnt siding blown away from the corner of my house and one of my cameras catching the world suddenly glowing orange/white was enough to convince them I didn't make up the strike. They are paying for a new equivalent to an old system, but that's perfectly reasonable. 

In reply to MrJoshua :

Sounds perfectly reasonable. To  that point there are certainly companies or adjusters or experts who seem to be perfectly happy to ignore the obvious.  I can say that I have never been asked nor directed to ignore or edit my findings.  

My house and separate garage got roof damage during a tornado that went through DeLand a few years ago. At the time, we were renting from a family member who (unknown to us) had decided to self insure.

Instead of paying for a new roof for both buildings, he instead sold us the property. We paid out-of-pocket to replace the two roofs, while buying the house and getting insurance.

What was interesting is that in the course of getting a series of estimates for the roof repair, several of the companies declined to do an estimate because we didn't have insurance. After reading this, I'm really glad that we didn't have anything to do with them.

I forget what the number is, but when I worked for State Farm it took "X number of hits/damage per square" for a side of the roof to be covered. A square being a 10'  x10' section, IIRC.  

Also, holy E36 M3 to Greg paying $7k per year for his HO policy. I thought 2200 per year with a $6k deductible was expensive for an 1800sq ft home.