Age of Roof

[insurancequestion]

If a home was built in 2000...and the roof was never replaced...but the customers say it is a "50 year" roof..how can we get that covered? Most carriers, Metlife, Safeco, etc...say that the roof has to be less than 20 years.

Also....if a customer lied and said that a roof is under 20 years old..how does the insurance company prove that?

If the customer still gets coverage...and then has a loss..is there a way for the insurance carrier to find out that the roof is older than 20 years...and if so..would the insurance company not cover the roof once they find that out?

 

[LostDollar]

Also....if a customer lied and said that a roof is under 20 years old..how does the insurance company prove that?

If the customer still gets coverage...and then has a loss..is there a way for the insurance carrier to find out that the roof is older than 20 years...and if so..would the insurance company not cover the roof once they find that out?

I am not an agent. I have been a forum member around 4 years. I sometimes look in on the P&C threads.

Posts I have seen here suggest that an agent facilitating that type of behavior in prospects to obtain clients may soon have more pressing personal concerns than the state of a lying client's claim.

I know nothing about insurance adjusting and very little about roofs. However, in regard to a 50 year roof:

I live a housing development about 25 years old. When new, almost all the roofs, while different in colors appeared to have shingles of the same basic shingle type and quality. Probably the cheapest thing the 3 builders in the development could buy to put on an $80-$90k house (or whatever the right number was at that time).

When we had our roof replaced, my wife handled the negotiations. I think she told me that for less $1,000 (I really want to say less than $500) - again old pricing- say 8-10 years ago - more than the cost of the exact shingles we could get under insurance, we could get a better quality shingle that would interlock better for wind resistance and resist hail better.

Today you can look down our street and easily see the houses that have the original shingles, or replacements just like them, and other houses that have had replacements like ours.

If there is such a thing as a 50 year roof, it seems to me that it would have a noticeably different type of shingle and experienced roofer and adjusters would know exactly what that would look like. When confronted with a homeowner that says that's a 50 year roof, they would immediately know that the homeowner is either lying or was mislead by a roofer or previous homeowner.

I am not the one in the field here, trying to earn a living to feed my wife and children, but my thought and unsolicited advice is that this is not a person you need as a customer.

 

[adjusterjack]

If a home was built in 2000...and the roof was never replaced...but the customers say it is a "50 year" roof..how can we get that covered?

By having the customer provide a copy of the 50 year warranty. He won't be able to. 20 years ago the best you could get was a 35 year shingle from Owens/Corning. Better quality builders probably used them. Tract homes, maybe not.

A year and a half ago I noticed that my O/C shingles came with a Limited Lifetime Warranty. A closer look revealed limitations within limitations and pro-rations of pro-rations.

Standard shingles come with 20 or 25 year warranties. Architectural shingles 35 years. Count on getting about 3/4 of those figures before the roof needs to be replaced and, by then, the pro-ration isn't worth the effort.

Also....if a customer lied and said that a roof is under 20 years old..how does the insurance company prove that?

By inspection. An experienced adjuster has seen thousands of roofs and can tell how old they are.

If the customer still gets coverage...and then has a loss..is there a way for the insurance carrier to find out that the roof is older than 20 years.

Again, by inspection.

and if so..would the insurance company not cover the roof once they find that out?

If an insured lied on the application and the lie was material to the underwriting of the risk the claim could be denied and the policy rescinded.

Less likely to happen with roofs as opposed to other reasons, but could happen.

If you want to write that policy I suggest you go to the guy's house, get up on a ladder (you don't have to get on the roof unless you want to) and take a bunch of close up photos of the shingles. Send them to your underwriter and have your underwriter take them to one of his property adjusters for an opinion of the age and condition of the roof.

Or, you can post them here and I'll give you my opinion.

 

[marindependent]

Assuming you are talking about an "Asfault Shingle" roof - than yes, you are going to have issues getting this one insured. [Personally I do not believe is AS 50 year roofs, I dont care what the literature says/]

However there are other types of roofs with this type of lifespan that are "more realistic" such as Steel roofs. On these you can on occassion get underwriters to approve them.

Agreed that you should ask for a copy of the warranty. In addition, a long shot, but you can also get the roof inspected and show that to an underwriter.

Do not get caught up in how an Insurance catches your client's lies, just do not be a part of them. There is too much good business out there to assist consumers in lyeing on insurance applications. Don't sell Cinderella Insurance, sell Real Insurance. Backed up by an honest attempt with the home insurance application.

 

[thomasm]

With the carriers I write roofs over 10 or 15 years old automatically default to ACV.

 

[sshafran]

I am not an agent. I have been a forum member around 4 years. I sometimes look in on the P&C threads.

Posts I have seen here suggest that an agent facilitating that type of behavior in prospects to obtain clients may soon have more pressing personal concerns than the state of a lying client's claim.

I know nothing about insurance adjusting and very little about roofs. However, in regard to a 50 year roof:

I live a housing development about 25 years old. When new, almost all the roofs, while different in colors appeared to have shingles of the same basic shingle type and quality. Probably the cheapest thing the 3 builders in the development could buy to put on an $80-$90k house (or whatever the right number was at that time).

When we had our roof replaced, my wife handled the negotiations. I think she told me that for less $1,000 (I really want to say less than $500) - again old pricing- say 8-10 years ago - more than the cost of the exact shingles we could get under insurance, we could get a better quality shingle that would interlock better for wind resistance and resist hail better.

Today you can look down our street and easily see the houses that have the original shingles, or replacements just like them, and other houses that have had replacements like ours.

If there is such a thing as a 50 year roof, it seems to me that it would have a noticeably different type of shingle and experienced roofer and adjusters would know exactly what that would look like. When confronted with a homeowner that says that's a 50 year roof, they would immediately know that the homeowner is either lying or was mislead by a roofer or previous homeowner.

I am not the one in the field here, trying to earn a living to feed my wife and children, but my thought and unsolicited advice is that this is not a person you need as a customer.

When I was selling roofs - our cost for 3 Tab was about $5 per square less than our cost for Architectural.

It was a no-brainer to upgrade.

Sometimes we could charge quite a bit more... other times if someone didn't want to pay extra (for example, an insurance claim where they previously had 3 tab)... we'd upgrade it "for free" because we didn't want to warranty the 3 tab.

Don't get me wrong we wanted to charge more but if hillbilly Jethro didn't want to pay any extra... we just ate the cost (it wasn't much) and tried to get referrals.

At the time it was simply supply/demand. No one was putting on 3 Tab so the price of Architectural went down (at least with our supplier).

-----

But to the OP's question - likely not 50/yr.

 

[sshafran]

They advertise as "lifetime" now but no roof lasts well beyond 35-40.

 

[adjusterjack]

They advertise as "lifetime" now

I noticed that in my last couple of purchases but reading the warranty terms reveal limitations and pro-rating as the roof gets older.

no roof lasts well beyond 35-40.

My experience as an adjuster says one would be lucky to get 25-30 years out of a 35 year roof. By then the pro-rating would make a warranty claim minimal if somebody wanted to take the time to do it. Worse, the manufacturer requires the installation documentation which, after the house is sold a few times is non-existent.