Your roof is just as important as the structure and contents it is protecting. Do you know if your current insurance policy will cover your roof on a replacement cost basis if you suffered a loss? In recent years’ insurance carriers have implemented stricter guidelines on their roof coverage within your homeowners’ policy.
There are two types of roof coverage on insurance policies: Replacement Cost and Actual Cash Value. Replacement cost will give you the full value of the roof minus your deductible. Most carriers will require you to submit proof that the damaged roof has been repaired and/or replaced before releasing all payments to you. Having replacement cost coverage is very important to protect you from incurring a large out of pocket expense should you suffer a claim to the roof.
Actual Cash Value, you will receive the age depreciated (reduced) value for the repair and/or replacement of your roof instead of the full replacement cost value. This means the carrier would give you some money towards the loss but it wouldn’t be the full amount needed to replace/repair the roof. You would have to come out of pocket to make up the difference for the full replacement/repair. Unfortunately, there is not a way for you to know how much that out of pocket expense would be. It all depends on type of damage, age, and current condition of the roof.
In recent years’ insurance carriers have started to implement new guidelines in order to maintain replacement cost coverage on your policy. Most of the time this is in the form of an ‘age limit’ on the roof. For example, some carriers say if your roof has not been replaced in 15 years then you are ineligible to receive replacement cost.
If you have been with your carrier for a long time or know your roof has a good bit of age to it, this is definitely something you should look into and verify on your current policy. Carriers will not necessarily go out of their way to notify you of this change. Most of the time they notify you by simply placing a notice within your renewal and let’s be honest, who truly looks at every page of their insurance renewal?
This is where having an Independent Agent can really benefit you. We stay educated on each carrier’s change in the coverage along with reviewing policy renewals to help prevent these types of gaps in coverage. No one wants to be told they aren’t covered or have a lack of coverage AFTER a claim has occurred.
Should you wish for one of our agents to complete a review of your home policy and current roof coverage in place, please give us a call (770) 926-9444 or mli@mountainlakesinsurance.com.