A Home Warranty Is Not Roof Insurance. Read the Exclusions First.

A home warranty plan and a homeowner's insurance policy are different contracts, and a roof leak can end up in front of both. People often assume one will pick up a roof problem because they already pay for the other. Before you call either company, find out which contract a particular kind of damage falls under, since that answer changes what you file, when you file it, and what proof you keep.

A home warranty is a service agreement. You pay a monthly or annual fee, and the company sends a contractor to repair listed systems and appliances when they break down, usually after you pay a service call fee. Its coverage is built around wear, age and mechanical failure in the parts named in the contract. An insurance policy is a different kind of promise. It covers sudden, accidental loss from perils the policy names, such as wind and hail, subject to the policy's own terms. The two can overlap on a roof, but they rarely overlap cleanly.

Why storm damage usually sits outside a warranty

Most home warranty contracts list their covered items, and roofs are often excluded or limited. Many also exclude damage from storms, hail, lightning, flood, freezing and other events outside normal wear. A hail-dented ridge cap or a wind-lifted shingle line is storm damage in plain terms, so a warranty company may say the cause is outside its coverage even when the leak looks like a maintenance problem. Read the exclusions section, not the summary page, because that is where the roof usually appears.

The reverse also happens. A warranty may cover a repair the insurer would never pay for, such as a worn flapper in a plumbing vent or a failed bath fan that exhausts into the attic. Those items may belong in the warranty file while the hail damage belongs in the insurance file. Splitting them early keeps you from paying twice or waiting on one company while the other clock runs.

Read the exclusions in writing

Three kinds of language decide most of these questions. The first is the list of covered systems, which tells you whether a roof, a gutter or a vent counts as part of the home at all. The second is the cause clause, which lists what the contract refuses to cover, often including storm and weather events. The third is the limit clause, which caps what the company will spend in a year or on one item. A roof repair can hit that limit before the work is done, so ask the cap question directly.

• Is the roof listed as a covered system, or only the interior plumbing and appliances?
• Does the contract exclude storm, hail, wind or water damage that comes from outside the house?
• Is there a dollar cap per repair, per year or per call, and does it apply to labor?
• Does the company send its own contractor, and can you choose your own?
• What must you do before the work starts, and what proof do they want?

Ask the warranty company in writing

Phone representatives often give quick answers that are not in the contract. Ask the question in writing and keep the reply. A short email is enough: describe the leak, give the date you first saw it, say whether a storm came before it, and ask whether the company will cover the roof repair, the interior damage or neither. Ask that the reply name the contract section it relies on. If the answer is no, that section is the one to read against your policy.

Do not sign a warranty company's work order that describes the cause as wear and tear if you believe a storm caused the damage. A work order is a record, and a written cause in it can be quoted back later by the insurer or by the warranty company. If the work order is already signed, send a dated note disagreeing with the stated cause and keep a copy in your own file.

Keep the two files separate

Set up two folders from the first day, one for the warranty company and one for your insurance policy. In the warranty folder, keep the contract, the fee receipts, the service tickets and every email. In the insurance folder, keep the policy form, the declarations page, the claim notices and the photos. Date each photo when you take it. If a contractor from either side works on the roof, record the name, company and date of the visit in the matching folder.

Keep the damage photos, roof measurements and written scope in the insurance folder. Do not send those originals to the warranty company as its own evidence unless the warranty company asks for them, and then send copies rather than originals. The insurer and the warranty company are separate parties, and each will want its own record. Sending the same originals to both can leave you without a clean copy when a dispute starts.

What Keys does and does not do here

Keys Roofing documents the damage, puts a written scope with photos and measurements in your hands, and attends as the contractor while you deal with your own insurer. Keys does not represent you to an insurer or a warranty company. Missouri law under RSMo 407.725 bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating a homeowner's insurance claim, so any contractor who offers to do that is outside the statute's allowed role. Keys will give you the scope you need for either file, and you decide which company receives it and when.

If a warranty company tells you its contractor will handle the roof, ask who that contractor is, whether the company carries liability insurance, and whether a written scope will follow the visit. A warranty repair that patches the leak without a written scope can leave you without the record you need for the insurance file.

When to call each company first

If the damage followed a storm, call your insurer first, because the policy is the contract most likely to respond to sudden loss. Then ask the warranty company in writing about any part the policy does not reach. If the damage is a slow leak with no storm behind it, the warranty may be the first call, but read the cause clause before you accept the service.

Consider a leak that appears after a hailstorm, followed by a bath fan that starts dripping a month later. The first belongs in the insurance file. The fan may belong in the warranty file, and its date and cause should go into that separate log. Writing down the storm date, the first sighting and the weather that week before you call either company tells each one what it is being asked to decide.