Fellow homeowners, please read and digest this email to make sure your home is protected.
Why it matters: The insurance landscape is changing, and you need to know what to expect.
🖼️ The big picture: Insurance carriers are looking for ways to cut cost.
- For the average homeowner, these are often subtle, if not hidden.
⚙️ How it works: In Texas, half of your insurance premium is because of your roof.
- From potential hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico to hail and wind storms in North Texas, the second most populated state in the nation presents a lot of risk to insurance carriers.
With that in mind, here’s what’s coming:
👉 Higher deductibles
- Your deductible is like your health insurance co-pay. You have to pay it, and insurers are moving toward a minimum hail and wind deductible of 2% (based on the insured value of your home).
👉 Partial coverage
- Insurance carriers have two main strategies for paying you less than it costs to replace your roof.
- A roof payment schedule (also called roof surface endorsement) pays you less as your roof ages.
- An ACV roof policy only pays you for the value of your roof based on its age — we’re used to RCV policies which pay you what it costs to replace the roof.
- Many policies are converting to ACV automatically once your roof is 12-15 years old. This ACV conversion can happen for a roof as new as 5 years old.
👉 Cosmetic exclusion
- This is a complex issue, but some carriers are excluding “cosmetic” damage.
- The problem with this is determining how to define cosmetic damage vs. functional damage. (Hint: Insurance draws that distinction in a way that favors them, not you.)
✅ For your Smart Homeowner list
Two recommendations:
- Insurance review — If you haven’t reviewed your current coverage in the past 12 months or aren’t sure about something from this article, schedule a review with your agent (see below for my recommendation).
- Roof inspection — If you haven’t had your roof inspected in the last year, now is the time. I can personally do it or give you a great recommendation if you’re outside my service area.
Best,
Travis
🔦 Pro Spotlight
Aaron Husman of The Phoenix Insurance doesn’t work for the insurance companies. He works for his clients. Reach out to him directly, so he can connect you with one of his team members for a free policy review at aaron@thephoenixinsurance.com.