You won't ever wish hail visited your home. The clanking, loud roof and the feeling that your roofing material won't hold is just one part of this nightmarish scenario. The next day brings the real terror to the situation: you see your asphalt shingle roof, dotted, cracked, and massively damaged in many sections. While some only have small hairline cracks, entire sections of your roof have bald underlayment showing for everyone to see.
After contacting your trusted Guelph roofing contractors, they show you the scale of the damages. You still remain confident -- after all, your roof damage insurance should cover it entirely right?
In fact, you've got great confidence that your insurance coverage will give you the best professional roof repair and replacement services in both labor and materials in Guelph once they've given you your benefits. However, you're faced with consistent rejection over and over again.
Unfortunately, that's the part where many homeowners find difficulty in successfully claiming from and receiving their hail damage insurance benefits.
If your insurance policy reads just like how Cover describes it below, then yes, you definitely won't have much problems in receiving benefits for your hail-damaged roof.
Does homeowners insurance cover hail damage?
Hail damage is one of the most common claims on homeowners insurance. It accounts for nearly 70 percent of insured property losses from severe storms every year.
Fortunately, most basic homeowners insurance policies cover structural property damage from hazards like hail. It’s covered under what’s called dwelling protection coverage (sometimes called Coverage A).
Dwelling protection coverage will help you pay for the repairs and rebuilding of the physical structures of your home and anything attached to it as long as a named peril damaged it. While policies vary, they generally insure against hazards or perils, such as fire, hail, theft, windstorms, vandalism, and lightning.
Generally, covered structures include the roof, windows, garage, appliances, porch or deck. Most policies also cover detached structures that are separate from your house, such as a garage or tool shed.
The amount covered for repairs depends on the limits and deductibles you chose for your policy. (Continued)
If it's as simple as that, why are so many homeowners having trouble? Well, it's possible they missed some clearly-defined details in the fine print.
But my insurance reads "protects against hail, fire, wind, etc." Why did they not honor my claim?
The thing is, some insurers exclude cosmetic damages and describe this in the fine print. Therefore, you're protected against all of these natural calamities only IF they cause structural or functional damage. That is to say, unless your roof is hanging by a thread due to the hailstorm, they have the right to reject your complaints.
Fortunately, more insurers are now including cosmetic insurance coverages for residences. Insurance.com has a great post about this -- read more about it below.
Until recently, most standard home insurance policies covered storm damage from wind and hail. However, insurers now have hail and wind exclusions. Companies can choose to adopt or not. It can exclude payments for damage to exterior surfaces, including walls, roofs, doors, and windows from hail or wind if the storm impacts the appearance but not the function of these elements.
Why the change to wind and hail insurance?
"Property and casualty insurance companies, especially smaller regional companies that insure homes in areas prone to storms, have been hit hard by storm losses over the past decade," says Joseph Harrington, director of corporate communications for the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS) in Wheaton, Ill.
"We came up with this exclusion as an alternative to insurance companies raising rates on everyone," says Harrington.
Wind insurance 1In addition to the severity of storms in recent years, Harrington says that more sophisticated tools have been used by some companies to help homeowners file insurance claims after a storm. (Continued)
The best approach to avoid the exasperating yet common difficulty of making successful hail insurance claims is to read the fine print as best you can. Research online about the possible interpretations of certain lines. In doing so, you avoid making failed claims -- and ultimately paying for a roof insurance policy that won't grant you any benefits whatsoever.
Lastly, make sure to have top-tier Guelph roofing companies such as Turbo Roofing to help you. With decades of experience in the industry and considered as Guelph's go-to roofers, we are greatly confident in successfully giving you a birds-eye-view of your roof's condition and providing essential roof repairs. Contact us today to learn more!