Roof Inspections and Written Reports

Nobody wakes up curious about their roof. There is always something behind the call: a renewal letter asking how old it is, a buyer whose home inspector wrote one vague line, or a storm last Tuesday.

Each of those wants a different document, and getting the wrong one is the usual reason somebody misses a deadline and has to pay for the whole thing twice.

Insurers have started caring about age

Roof age has gone from a detail on a form to a rating factor. Some underwriters will not write a policy past a certain age without evidence of remaining life. Others will write it on actual cash value rather than replacement cost — which sounds like paperwork and means the difference between a new roof and a depreciated cheque after the next storm.

Worth asking your insurer what they actually want before booking anything. They are not always asking for what people assume they are.

What makes a report useful

Age. Material. What was observed, with photographs. Remaining life, with a reason attached rather than a number pulled from the air. And after a storm, the extra question: is this consistent with that specific event, or with twenty years of ordinary weather?

Adjusters are looking for exactly that distinction, so our storm assessments draw it explicitly instead of leaving it for somebody else to argue.

And a report that recommends a full replacement on every roof it looks at is worth nothing to anybody. If your roof is fine, it will say so — which is not much of a sales strategy and is the only version worth paying for.