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Roofs and Home Insurance: 3 Things Florida Homeowners Need to Know Now
By Paul Reynolds MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
If you’ve followed or experienced the ongoing tumult around Florida home insurance, you know plenty of the news has involved roofs — and almost all of it has been bad.
At the top of the list is a rash of fraudulent claims from roof contractors. Some insurers have canceled policies because they deem the roof too old on the insured property, and homeowners insurance premiums in Florida continue to rise to offset costs. To add to that, roofs don’t last as long in the Sunshine State as elsewhere, and state regulations require replacing roofs rather than repairing them — all of which also helps to drive up costs.
This story puts these issues into context with recent legislative developments to offer you what you need to know about your roof and your home insurance.
Fraudulent contractors have driven up insurance claims for roofs
At the heart of Florida’s insurance mess are the actions of some unscrupulous roofing companies, according to lawmakers and insurers.
The rogue roofers inspect household roofs and then tell the homeowners that their insurance can replace the entire roof, whether that’s justified or not under the policy. (To clarify, home insurance typically covers roof repair or replacement only if it results from a weather event or other sudden and unexpected peril included in your policy. It won’t cover it for regular wear and tear.)
If the claim is denied because the damage is indeed out of the policy’s scope, the contractors litigate the claims. The suits are often settled for many times more than the original claim, with much of that money going to the contractors’ lawyers.
Naturally, the swollen settlements eventually result in increased costs for insurers, which in turn pass the costs along to their policyholders — helping to fuel the double-digit increases in premiums and many canceled policies due to tighter restrictions.
A bill signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in late May aimed, in part, to curb rising fees by blocking the ability for settlements to be reassigned from homeowners to contractors. Critics say this arrangement facilitates exorbitant fees and costly suits. But a contractors group is challenging the new law, saying it unfairly deprives them of their constitutional rights.
Climate change is worsening Florida’s roof problems
Florida’s climate is especially hard on roofs. That reality drives up home maintenance costs and exacerbates the state’s insurance problems.
The estimated life expectancy of asphalt shingle roofs in the state is between 10 and 12 years, as compared with 20 years elsewhere, an S&P Global Market Intelligence report says.
In Florida, the roof-killing climate begins with extreme heat and sun; Miami, for example, ranks among the 30 sunniest cities in the U.S., according to the federal National Climatic Data Center. Those conditions curl shingles and cause underlying woodwork to shrink and expand, creating leaks.
Further, Florida is the most humid state in the U.S. — especially in its south — and its mugginess can damage the roofs both outside and in (through condensation). Finally, storms readily rip off roofs, of course, and Miami is by far the most hurricane-prone big city in the country, with an average of five hurricanes a decade, according to Groundworks, a water management company based in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Those conditions are predicted to continue or even worsen in the years ahead since climate change is still expected to hit the Sunshine State harder than the norm across the country.
According to an analysis by online insurance broker Policygenius, “No state in the U.S. has a more dire climate change outlook than Florida, a state that ranks as a top-five worst state for both extreme heat and flooding.”
Florida insurance still favors roof replacement, but with new twists
Since 2017, Florida regulations have encouraged roof replacement over repair. Under the state building code, a roof must be replaced if more than a quarter of it is deemed damaged. The result, critics say, is a system that favors costly (and sometimes unnecessary) roof makeovers — the cost of which is passed along to homeowners through higher premiums.
State legislation, known as Senate Bill 1728, to reduce replacements of less seriously damaged roofs was introduced this year, but then died in Tallahassee. However, several provisions of Senate Bill SB-2D — the insurance legislation that also curbed attorneys’ fees mentioned above — aim to address beefing up roofs.
For one, financial help to homeowners in south Florida and part of the Panhandle to storm-harden their homes, including their roofs. If your home lies within the program’s boundaries and meets other requirements, up to $10,000 may be available to cover the cost of improvements to a roof. Such a grant could cover much or all of the cost — since in Florida, even replacing a roof typically costs $10,000 or less, according to information found on a number of contractors’ websites.
The new bill also allows homeowners to choose between ways to structure the costs of insuring their home’s roof. Though it isn’t clear that policies will offer the option, at least yet, insurers can now impose a deductible for roof claims, running to as much as 2% of the covered cost of the home or 50% of the cost of the repairs.
In exchange, the policy’s premiums could be lower. Homeowners can opt out of the deductible, but policies without the deductible will cost more.
The bill aims, too, to make it harder for insurers to cancel your policy because of the age of your roof and the risk it represents. Some companies in the state even require your roof to have a certain number of years of useful life left — usually three years — in order for the home to still carry a policy.
Insurers will now be barred from refusing to cover homes with a roof younger than 15 years old solely because of the roof’s age. Insurers will also be required to inspect damage on a home within 45 days of receiving a claim for non-hurricane damage.
Those steps could help existing homeowners, although some legislators have expressed concern that the 15-year threshold could result in insurers not writing new business.
What to do now about your roof insurance
The changes in the bills may not relieve Florida’s ballooning home insurance premiums, say their critics. Yet their provisions might be worth exploring with your insurance company or agent, to see how they might affect your costs. State agencies or representatives might also be able to better help you understand the laws and that grant program.
State assistance or not, it may still be smart to replace or upgrade your roof before it reaches its 15th birthday or begins to show signs of trouble. Beyond that age, a roof can still be cited by insurers as a reason to deny coverage, including a renewal. And the effects of aging can lead to damage elsewhere in the home, from leaks and the like.
