Roof Insurance Claims

The short answer

Buildings insurance covers sudden storm damage. It does not cover gradual deterioration, and that distinction decides almost every roof claim. Photograph everything before anyone clears up, keep the broken slate or the torn felt, give the insurer an exact date, and pay only for making the roof safe until the claim is agreed. A permanent repair carried out before the insurer has seen it destroys the evidence you need.

The three tests an insurer applies

Every standard UK buildings policy covers damage caused suddenly by a storm. None of them cover gradual deterioration, lack of maintenance or a roof that has reached the end of its life. Insurers know exactly where that line sits and they look for it first.

A claims handler or loss adjuster works through three questions in order. Was there a storm at your address on the date you gave. Is the damage the sort a storm causes. Was the storm the dominant cause, rather than the last shove against something that was already failing. Most refusals happen on the third question, and most of those refusals are about the fixings rather than the tiles.

What reads as storm and what reads as wear

The pattern of the damage tells an experienced eye more than the date does. These are the readings that come up again and again on South London roofs.

Tiles or slates gone in a group, at a ridge, verge or corner: Reads as storm. Wind does not push a roof over; it pulls. Air accelerating across the ridge drops in pressure on the slope behind it, and the suction lifts the tail of anything that is only hooked over a batten. Damage concentrated at the edges is what wind actually does.
Slates missing singly, scattered evenly across a whole slope: Reads as wear. Nail sickness: the iron fixings corrode until the head thins to nothing and the slate is held by friction alone. It drops in its own time, storm or no storm. An adjuster who sees fresh gaps spread across a slope will call it nail fatigue, and will usually be right.
Lead flashing split along its length: Reads as wear. Lead moves noticeably between a January night and a July afternoon. A piece longer than about a metre and a half, fixed at both ends, has nowhere to expand, so it work-hardens and cracks along the line of most movement. That takes years, not one night.
A blistered or lifted felt flat roof: Reads as wear, almost always. Moisture trapped in the deck turns to vapour in the sun, cannot escape upwards through the felt, and lifts the cap sheet off the layer below where the bond is weakest. Storms do not make blisters. They open the ones that were already there.
A chimney stack down, or a ridge line off: Reads as storm where the wind was genuinely severe. Photograph the debris where it fell, before anyone moves it. Where it landed is part of the evidence.
A tree, a fence panel or a neighbour's trampoline through the roof: Covered, either as storm or as impact damage depending on the wording. Keep the object. Photograph it in place.

What counts as a storm, and how they check

Policies define the word, and the definition is in the wording document rather than the summary. Most describe a storm as very strong wind, often quoting a gust speed somewhere around 47 to 55 miles per hour, or torrential rain, large hail or heavy snow. A wet, windy week does not qualify. One violent afternoon usually does.

Insurers buy weather data by postcode, so they will know what the wind did at your address on the day, more or less to the hour. Give them an exact date. A claim reported as happening at some point in February invites a refusal, because the insurer can pick a calm day inside that window and use it. If the Met Office named the storm, put the name and the date in the first sentence of your claim.

Photograph it before you clear up

Insurers rarely send anyone onto a domestic roof. The claim is decided on photographs, and on a report. Most of the photographs will be yours.

Take them before you sweep the path or move the broken tiles, and take far more than you think you need. Send the original files by email rather than through a messaging app, because most apps compress the image and strip the date and location data out of it. That data is quietly useful when a handler questions when the damage happened.

One wide shot from the street: The whole elevation with the house number visible, so nobody can argue about which property it is.
The damage from the middle distance: Close enough to see what has gone, far enough to show where it sits on the roof.
The debris where it landed: In the garden, on the path, on a car. This is what shows the material came off in one event.
Inside the loft and the room below: The wet trail, the stained ceiling, the daylight through the roof if there is any.
Everything that got wet: Carpets, furniture and belongings usually sit under the contents section rather than buildings, and they are claimed separately.
The broken material itself: Keep the slate, the tile or the piece of felt in the garden until the claim is settled. It is the cheapest evidence you will ever have.

The order to do things in

Ring the insurer early, ideally before anything beyond making the roof safe. Every policy places a duty on you to prevent further damage, so covering a hole is expected and the cost of it is normally claimable. What loses claims is going straight to a permanent repair, because the evidence disappears into a skip along with the damaged slate.

Get the make-safe invoice itemised and worded as emergency make-safe and temporary cover, separate from any later repair. Keep receipts for a hotel, a dehumidifier or anything else the damage forced you into.

Then read the excess before you commit to the claim. Some policies carry a separate, higher excess for storm. A repair costing little more than the excess is often not worth claiming at all, because the claim sits on your record for years and moves your renewal price whether it pays out or not. We will tell you plainly when yours is one of those.

What a roofer should give you for a claim

A quote is not a claim document. What an insurer wants is a description of the damage, a cause, and enough evidence to test the cause against their own weather data. A roofer who hands you a one-line price for storm damage repairs has given you nothing to argue with.

A dated written report naming the cause: In plain terms: what failed, where, and why it is consistent with wind on that date rather than with age. It should say the address, the date of the inspection and the date of the event.
Photographs taken from the roof, not the pavement: Full resolution, including the fixings and the battens where they can be seen. Zoomed phone shots from the ground rarely convince anyone.
An itemised quotation with the access priced separately: Make-safe on one line, permanent repair on another, scaffold or tower on a third. Insurers settle line by line and will query anything bundled.
A clear statement of what cannot be known yet: Nobody can tell you the condition of the battens and the underlay until something comes off. Saying so in the report is more credible than pretending otherwise, and it protects you if more is found.
A willingness to speak to the loss adjuster: On larger claims an adjuster is appointed. Ten minutes on the phone between two people who understand roofs settles more than a fortnight of letters.
An honest answer when it is not a claim: If your roof has nail fatigue rather than storm damage, you need to hear that from us rather than from the insurer eight weeks later. It changes what you should do with the money, not just who pays.

What drives the cost

The cost of making a roof safe and covering it temporarily depends on the hour and how the roof is reached. Access is the item that surprises people: a tower for a two-storey rear slope is modest, while a scaffold to one elevation of a terrace, with a footway licence from the council, costs a good deal more on a London street. Where a standalone written report is charged for rather than included with a quote, it costs more on something larger or more complicated than on a normal terrace or semi.

Our survey, our quote and the photographs we take are free, and you get the photographs whether or not you use us. What is worth asking any roofer before they start is whether they bill you and you reclaim, or invoice the insurer directly. Both are normal. Being told which one applies before the work begins is not always normal, and it should be.

If the insurer says no

A refusal on the phone from a call handler is not a final decision. Ask for it in writing, with the reason stated and a copy of any surveyor's or adjuster's report they relied on. You are entitled to ask for the information they hold about you, and the report is usually part of it.

Then complain formally to the insurer. They have eight weeks to give you a final response. If it still goes against you, the Financial Ombudsman Service will look at it free of charge, and you have six months from that final response letter to take it there. Its decision binds the insurer.

What changes minds at that stage is an independent roofer's report that addresses the insurer's actual reason rather than restating the damage. If they said nail fatigue, the report has to deal with the fixings. We write them that way because a report that argues past the objection is worth nothing to you.

Questions

Will making a claim push my premium up?

Usually, yes, at renewal and often for five years afterwards, and that applies to some claims that are declined as well as ones that pay. This is why a repair costing little more than your excess is rarely worth claiming. Ask us for the repair price first, then decide.

My roof is sixty years old. Can I still claim for storm damage?

Yes. Age alone is not an exclusion, and no policy asks your roof to be new. What the insurer tests is whether the storm caused the damage or merely revealed a roof that had already failed. A sixty-year-old roof in sound condition with a corner torn off in a gale is a straightforward claim.

Do I have to use the roofer my insurer sends?

Usually not. Most policies let you use your own contractor, though some offer a cash settlement at their network's rates instead of the full quote if you do. Check the wording, and ask the insurer directly. Being on an approved network is a commercial arrangement, not a measure of the work.

Can I get the roof covered before the insurer has agreed anything?

Yes, and you generally should. Your policy requires you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage. Cover the hole, keep the itemised invoice, and photograph the damage before the cover goes on. What you should not do is carry out the permanent repair before the insurer has seen the evidence.

The insurer says it is wear and tear. Is that the end of it?

No. It is their opening position, and it is sometimes wrong. Get the refusal and their report in writing, then have a roofer address the specific reason they gave. If that fails, the insurer's complaints process and then the Financial Ombudsman Service are both free to you.

Does insurance cover a flat roof that has started leaking?

Rarely, if the cause is a blister, a shrunken seam or brittle felt, because all three are gradual deterioration. Storm damage to a flat roof does happen, usually as a whole sheet lifted at an edge. Some policies also restrict cover on flat roofs above a certain age or area, which is worth checking before you need it.

How long after the damage can I claim?

Report it as soon as you reasonably can. Some policies set a deadline of around thirty days and most expect prompt notification, and a long delay lets the insurer argue that further damage was your responsibility rather than the storm's. If you have only just found a stain from a storm two months ago, say exactly that rather than guessing at a date.

Do you take on insurance work?

Yes, regularly, and it is listed on our Checkatrade profile. We photograph everything, write the report in the terms insurers ask for, and price the make-safe and the permanent repair as separate lines. Tell us at the first call that it is a claim, because it is far easier to document from the start than to reconstruct afterwards.

Roof damage and insurance claims