Hoping to get an insurance company to pay for your roof replacement? You should know they’re going to do everything they can to avoid paying. Third-generation roofer Grant Golliver offers basic tips to reduce the risk of an insurance company rejecting your request.
Keep Your Trees Trimmed
“That’s one thing I see a lot of times, and it’s almost like homeowner neglect,” says Grant Golliver, owner of Messick Roofing. “I’ll go out there and I’ll see trees with branches that are scraping on the roof, and it’s pretty obvious it’s been doing it for several years based on how long the branches are touching the roof. The tree might be ten feet away from the house and it’s ten feet over the top of the roof and it’s just scraping it away. Well, the insurance company looks at things like that.”
So, now is a good time to walk around your house and make sure you don’t have any branches that are touching—or are close to touching—your roof.
Limit Your Christmas Lights
“I’m a Christmas light kind of guy in my house,” Golliver says. “I love Christmas lights. They’re beautiful. But some people go above and beyond. They’ll take the Christmas lights up the ridges and up the hips of the house and up and over the top of it. Well, the insurance adjuster will get out there and they’ll say, ‘It looks like there’s footprints all over the house. It looks like there’s man-made damage everywhere from somebody walking all over it with boots.’
“So, as beautiful as it looks, the last thing you really want is to run Christmas lights all the way up the hips to the ridge and over the top. You want to keep them right at the eve where your gutter lines are, maybe kind of up the edge of the roof around the perimeter. That’s the best way to do it. Because if an insurance adjuster comes out and they see that there’s footprints or, you know, it’s a walkable area, then they’ll use that as an excuse not to pay for that.”
Christmas lights are great, but just be aware that walking around on your roof can cause visible damage that insurance adjusters will use to limit what the company has to pay out.
Need a roof replacement?
Messick Roofing has been keeping Oklahomans safe and dry for more than 60 years. Give us a call at (918) 276-7285 to get a free estimate on your roof replacement.