Old roofs and California insurance: what is actually covered

That is a policy term rather than a law, so the answer is in your own schedule under roof settlement, and it is worth reading before a claim rather than during one. What state law does give you is time: where a policy pays replacement cost, the insurer may not allow you less than twelve months from the first actual cash value payment to collect the rest, and not less than thirty-six months where the loss relates to a declared state of emergency. Age alone does not make a roof uninsurable in California, but it changes what a policy pays: many insurers move an older roof from replacement cost onto actual cash value, which means the payout is the depreciated value rather than the cost of a new roof. In this market the aged-roof claim almost never arrives after hail. It arrives after rain gets through forty-year-old tile underlayment, and the argument is about wear versus a sudden event — which is why what the roof looked like before matters, and why photographs taken now are worth more than photographs taken later.

The two ways a policy pays, and the difference in money

One pays what a new roof costs. The other pays what your old one was worth. Nobody explains which you have until you claim. The hard outer limit is the one to know: suit on the policy has to be brought within twelve months of the inception of the loss, extended to twenty-four months for a loss related to a state of emergency. Whatever else is happening, that limit does not care about how the negotiation is going, which is why a claim heading nowhere is a reason to take advice early. The Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations put real, enforceable clocks on an insurer. Within fifteen calendar days of being notified of a claim it must acknowledge receipt, provide the necessary forms and instructions, and begin any necessary investigation; it must respond fully to your communications within fifteen calendar days; it must accept or deny the claim within forty calendar days of receiving proof of claim; and once accepted, it must pay within thirty calendar days. While a determination is outstanding it must send you a written status update every thirty days. On the other side, if the policy pays replacement cost, state law forbids the insurer from allowing you less than twelve months from the first actual cash value payment to collect the rest — and not less than thirty-six months where the loss relates to a declared state of emergency, with further extensions available for good cause and for delays outside your control such as permits or contractor availability.

The layer under the tile is the one that fails

A fifty-year tile roof needs work at twenty, and this is why. A tile roof does not fail from the top down. The tile outlives the felt beneath it by decades, so what wears out on a tile roof in Aliso Viejo is the underlayment — and the first evidence is usually a rain-driven leak into a room that has been dry for thirty years.

Tile lift-and-relay, per square in Aliso Viejo: $687 – $1,282. Existing tile comes off, new underlayment goes down, the same tile goes back. Not all of the tile survives being lifted. A few per cent breakage is normal, matching a discontinued profile is the hard part, and a quote that does not say what happens to unusable tile has a hole in it.

What gets a claim denied

The mistakes below cost people claims they would otherwise have won. Those gusts are ERA5 reanalysis at the city location rather than a reading from a mast in the street. They are good for comparing one storm day against another and for knowing which nights were worth checking after, and they are not evidence about one house.

California does not have a roofing-specific statute prohibiting a contractor from covering your deductible, in the way Texas and Florida do. That is not permission. The mechanism is what makes it illegal: a contractor who bills the insurer for the full amount while collecting less than the full amount from you has submitted a claim containing a false statement of material fact, and knowingly presenting a false or fraudulent insurance claim is a felony under Penal Code section 550, carrying prison terms and fines up to $50,000 or double the amount of the fraud. A radar detection means a storm cell over the area was carrying hail aloft. It is not a measurement of what landed on any particular street, and that difference is the whole of the decision about whether to have a roof looked at. California does not have a roofing-specific statute prohibiting a contractor from covering your deductible, in the way Texas and Florida do. That is not permission. The mechanism is what makes it illegal: a contractor who bills the insurer for the full amount while collecting less than the full amount from you has submitted a claim containing a false statement of material fact, and knowingly presenting a false or fraudulent insurance claim is a felony under Penal Code section 550, carrying prison terms and fines up to $50,000 or double the amount of the fraud.

• Accepting the first scope without reading it. A scope that omits the flashing, the ridge or the disposal is a scope that will need arguing about later.
• Leaving it. Most policies require prompt notice, and a claim made a year later is a claim about a roof that has weathered for a year.
• Treating a door-knocker's free inspection as an independent opinion. It is a sales visit, and sometimes a very good one, but it is not independent.
• Letting somebody repair it before it is documented. The evidence is gone and the claim is now an argument about photographs nobody took.
• Signing an assignment of benefits, or a contract with a blank price, before there is a scope anybody agrees on.

Contractors who work in Aliso Viejo

Everything on this page is about Aliso Viejo specifically. The service itself is simple and worth stating plainly: it arranges quotes from up to three independent local roofing contractors and does not carry out roofing work.

Figures on this page are modelled or come from the sources above and are dated where it matters. This site arranges quotes from independent local contractors and does no roofing work itself.