What Does Your Roof Insurance Actually Cover?

Roof maintenance and repairs are important since they will keep your investment intact for as long as possible. Unfortunately, no matter how much care you apply to it, there will come a time when it will fail due to natural causes. To minimize your losses, you should get comprehensive coverage from your insurance company. As such, it’s important to know what’s covered by your insurance policy.

What Your Homeowner’s Insurance Can Cover

In many cases, your homeowner’s insurance policy covers your entire house, the roof included. In case a part of your home gets damaged by the elements or other natural causes, the coverage will be calculated based on your roof’s age and your warranty coverage. For example, the dwelling coverage will take care of the majority of the roof repair costs caused by hail, branches and other debris. Another example would be personal property coverage, which will cover damaged valuables.

Covered Perils

Your roof repair contractors will remind you that perils are the things that can cause damage or losses to your property. Examples of covered perils are fire, robbery or damage from the elements. The two types of perils are named perils and all-risk perils. Named perils specifically dictate the kind of perils that will be covered by the policy while the latter covers what won’t be included. As such, it’s important to know what kind of policy you have.

What Doesn’t Your Insurance Cover?

Most homeowners’ insurance policies will answer for emergency roofing damage. Insurance providers won’t cover damage caused by neglect or natural degradation. An insurance adjuster can easily spot this since it’s a homeowner’s responsibility to conduct regular maintenance. To avoid these issues, make sure that you get your roof checked regularly.

Actual cash value or replacement cost: what your roof coverage pays

• Replacement cost value (RCV) pays what it costs to replace the damaged roof with a similar new one, minus your deductible. Many policies pay part first and the rest, called recoverable depreciation, once the work is done and you send the invoice.
• Actual cash value (ACV) pays the replacement cost minus depreciation for the roof’s age and wear, then minus your deductible. On an older roof, that can leave a large gap.

Some policies use replacement cost for most of the home but actual cash value for the roof, or switch once a roof reaches a certain age. Two more items are worth finding in your policy:

• Ordinance or law coverage, which can help pay for work a building code requires during a repair.
• The wind and hail deductible, which may be separate from your main deductible.

Your declarations page and policy wording are the final word. Our insurance claims page explains how we work with homeowners on claims.

To learn more about what Lankford Roofing & Construction LLC can do for you, don’t hesitate to give us a call today at 903-465-7677 for Texas and at (580) 920-1433 for Oklahoma. We also have a contact form you can easily fill out to get in touch with us, and we’ll get back to you right away with your free quote.