pageta Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 We bought our house in 2002 and a month later, a bad storm came through our town and everyone got new roofs. Last fall my husband got up on the roof to clean out the gutters and noticed some of the shingles were having issues with thermal splitting. The guy who put the shingles on our roof is no longer in business, but we did work with the company he probably bought the shingles from (apparently he was a favorite customer of theirs and no longer has a credit account with them). The guy that put the shingles on our roof did not specify in the paperwork the brand or type of shingles. I just have a receipt saying he replaced the shingles on our roof. Someone from the shingle supplier came out and verified the brand and the failure is due to defective shingles. The said, "Don't worry - we'll take care of you" and that's the last we heard from them. Supposedly it's a lot more expensive now to shingle a roof so this shingle company is dragging its feet when it comes to honoring the warranty on the shingles. Last week my husband got on the roof again to clean out the gutters, and more shingles are failing. Unfortunately we don't have $10K laying around waiting to be spent on installing new shingles on the entire roof. I assume homeowners insurance wouldn't do anything about it because the shingles are defective and it is the shingle company's responsibility to honor the warranty. I know it was hard to identify exactly which shingles were put on our roof - apparently they don't label them or something or maybe you have to take them off completely to see exactly what they are? I would think that you should be able to identify from the shingles themselves who made them and with a receipt prove when they were installed and have proof of warranty that way. But let's say my husband hadn't gotten on the roof and noticed the problem, or if he had, he didn't recognize it as a problem that needed to be addressed, and then we got a leak. Would the homeowners insurance cover the damage then and pay for the repairs, including installation of new shingles? Anyone else dealt with something like this? What are our options? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Contact your insurance company and let them know what is going on. They might get their lawyers involved to light a fire under the shingle company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 IMHO I would not consider going the insurance route. I have read articles how home owners had their insurance cancelled or rates jacked up significantly after using their insurance for somewhat minor damage. The gist of the article was to save your insurance for catastrophic things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My3Boys Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Our house in TN suffered hail damage last April (?) from a bad storm that blew through the area. Our insurance company paid to replace the whole roof and a number of other things. Whether or not the shingles were defective shouldn't matter IMHO. That might not even be the case. I would contact your insurance company and ask them to send someone out to asses the damage and leave it at that. If there was widespread damage in the area, they are less likely to hassle you on details and more likely to just settle and get it over with. In our case, our area was declared a disaster zone or something and the county got federal money, which is why I suspect the insurance company was so generous. They probably benefited somehow. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephanieZ Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 No way, insurance will not cover. If you got a leak in a one-time storm, insurance would cover the leak damage. It would NOT cover leak damage if the damage were due to a long term problem. Otherwise, noone would ever pay for new roofs. Good luck dealing with the roofer & shingle co. Don't even consider the insurance thing. It's not going to fly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
black_midori Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Be careful going to insurance if it seems like (as pp above indicate) they won't cover. We were SURE our insurance would cover a specific re-roofing issue and they ended up not only NOT covering it, but putting it in notes that they wouldn't cover it. Then we refinanced recently & I decided to get a new HO insurance - after reading the non-covered claims on the old insurance, they made us sign a notice that our roof was specifically excluded from the new insurance until such a time as we got it replaced personally. So, we now need to come up with some 15k to re-roof sometime in the next few years & hope that it stays leak-free until then! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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