What are the common roof exclusions in homeowners insurance?
Short answer. The most common roof exclusions are wear and tear, deterioration, faulty workmanship and materials, damage from birds, rodents and insects, mold and rot, gradual leakage, and flood. Many policies also add roof-specific endorsements that exclude cosmetic hail damage, pay roofs at actual cash value, or limit payment by roof age.
Standard exclusions and what they mean on a roof
- Wear and tear, deterioration: granule loss, curling, cracking and brittleness from age and sun.
- Faulty workmanship, materials or design: high nailing, missing starter strip, bad flashing, inadequate ventilation. The resulting storm damage may still be covered, but fixing the defect itself is not.
- Birds, rodents, insects and vermin: squirrel chewing, nesting damage, termite damage to decking.
- Mold, fungi and rot: excluded or limited to a small amount when caused by a covered water loss.
- Continuous or repeated seepage: leaks that went on for weeks, months or years.
- Flood and surface water: excluded entirely.
- Neglect: failing to protect the property after a loss.
Roof-specific endorsements
- Cosmetic damage exclusion: dents and marks that do not affect function, especially on metal.
- Actual cash value roof settlement: depreciation is not recoverable.
- Roof payment schedule: payout shrinks as the roof ages.
- Roof covering exclusions: some policies on older roofs exclude the roof covering from wind and hail coverage altogether. If yours does, a hailstorm could leave the whole roof on you.
Find yours
Exclusions are in the policy form; endorsements are listed by name and form number on the declarations page. See the cosmetic damage exclusion, payment schedules and wear and tear versus hail.