Roof Insurance Claims in St. Augustine, FL

The adjuster is coming Tuesday. The tarp has been on the roof since the storm, you have fifty photos on your phone, and a truck with out-of-state plates has already been by twice. This site connects you by phone with an independent local roofing contractor who documents roof damage in St. Johns County. It is not a public adjuster, a law firm, or an insurer, and nothing here is legal advice.

What the crew does first

The contractor's job in a claim is documentation. They walk the roof and photograph each slope, count creased and missing shingles or bent panels, mark where underlayment is torn, and note whether the decking is wet. They separate what the storm did from what was already worn, which on a 2003 shingle roof is the whole question. Then they write a line-item scope: materials, quantities, labor, permit, and what has to come off to fix what is damaged.

On a house that also took water at the floor, which happens in Davis Shores, Lincolnville, and Vilano, they keep the roof scope separate from the flood damage, because those are different policies and different adjusters. Many contractors will meet the adjuster on the roof so the two are looking at the same thing.

What to do in the next hour

Photograph the damage inside and out before anything is moved. Get the roof tarped and keep the receipt; emergency protection is normally part of the claim, and your policy requires you to prevent further damage. Call your insurer and get a claim number.

Then find your policy's declarations page and read three lines: the hurricane deductible, which is usually 2 to 5 percent of dwelling coverage on a named storm; the notice-of-claim deadline; and whether the roof is covered at replacement cost or actual cash value. A roof over a certain age on an actual-cash-value schedule pays out less, and that is worth knowing before Tuesday.

What is usually covered and what is not

Nobody on this site can tell you what your policy will pay. As a general pattern, sudden wind damage from a storm is the kind of loss a Florida homeowner policy is written for. Wear, age, a shingle seal that let go over years of nor'easters, and leaks that have been running for months are usually treated as maintenance and excluded. Rising water from the bay or the river is a flood policy matter, not a homeowner policy matter.

Once the insurer issues its decision, the repair is a storm damage or replacement job with a permit pulled through the county or the city. A disputed claim is a job for a licensed public adjuster or an attorney, not a roofer.

St. Johns County notes: the Florida rules that changed in 2022

Florida rewrote its property insurance law twice in 2022. Three changes matter for a roof claim. A new claim must be reported within one year of the date of loss, down from two, and a supplemental claim within 18 months. Assignment of benefits, where a contractor takes over your claim, is no longer allowed on residential policies issued on or after January 1, 2023, so the claim stays in your name. And since May 2022, a carrier cannot refuse to renew solely for roof age if the roof is under 15 years old or an inspection shows five or more years of life left.

The pitches that should end a conversation: an offer to waive your deductible, which is fraud; a form to "authorize an inspection" that is actually a contract; and anyone who discourages you from reading before signing. After Matthew, Irma, and the 2022 and 2024 storms, this county has seen every version.

Many St. Johns County homes that lost private coverage after those years ended up with Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed carrier, which has its own roof-age and inspection rules at renewal. A roof inspection report from before the storm is the single most useful document in a claim, because it proves what the roof looked like the week before, and a wind mitigation form on file shows what the roof was built to.

Calling about a roof claim

Have the address, the storm date, the claim number, the adjuster's visit date if scheduled, and your policy's declarations page. Say whether the roof is tarped, whether the house also took water at the floor, and whether the home is occupied. Call (904) 895-7548.