Denied and declined: Slope slights and insurance fights

By Anna Lockhart.  

Join industry experts as they discuss the ongoing battle in providing Floridians with proper and fair insurance coverage.  

Tune in to a recent Coffee Conversations, hosted by Megan Ellsworth and sponsored by APOC, featuring guests Josh Poole of Tremco, RCMA lobbyist Chip Case and John Hull of Gulf Coast Infrared as they discuss one of the biggest issues facing the commercial roofing sector – insurance denials for restoration projects.  

As owner after owner continues to be met with denials for renovations from their insurance companies, contractors and owners alike are becoming frustrated with these frequent roadblocks preventing them from getting critical jobs done to save these buildings’ roofs. In low-slope roofing cases, insurance in the state of Florida has been a challenging topic for the last three decades. Josh shared, “With mounting repair costs following natural disasters that were wreaking havoc, there became a sort of cause and effect that’s still currently impacting the residents of Florida today. Because of the frequency of those events, there have been hikes and adjustment cost, leading insurance companies to begin exiting the state and limiting coverage and policies they are willing to provide.”  

Since then, the cost of insurance from these companies has continued to balloon to astronomical and unreasonable amounts. In a recent bill, lawmakers have attempted to combat the rising claim costs. John shared, “This bill was intended to be more residential homeowner driven and unfortunately, we've had condominiums and large multifamily properties be lumped into that.” This is a major issue, as traditional residential homes have much simpler roofs and needs compared to commercial properties. “So now we have these very robust, complex, well-engineered systems that have been lumped into the same category as a simple shingle. They've all been lumped in together and it has caused pretty significant damage to the industry.”

To combat this, industry professionals have taken it upon themselves to make things right for the commercial roofers and building owners. Chip shared, “Recently, we took a stab at doing some suggested bill and amendment language changes to the state statute... I think having legislation will do two things to insurance providers. First, it will mean they have to do whatever the policy makers say that they have to do.” This would mean that insurance providers would be mandated to follow these precedents and therefore would impact the Florida roofing market, hopefully, in a positive way by lowering the costs of roofing replacements.  

“Secondly, would be defining what a slope roof is. The difference between low slope and steep slope,” Chip added. Without clarifying language, grouping these two types of slopes together is one of the major factors hurting commercial roofers, as low-slope systems are more complex and larger endeavors than the traditional residential steep slope roof. Such changes to the legal literature and implemented by legislation would hopefully help Florida building owners, contractors and roofing professionals substantially.  

Read the transcript, Listen to the conversation or Watch the webinar to learn more about Florida roofing professionals’ fight for proper insurance coverage.