Insurance and Tile Roofs

Our BOD and the ARC (Architectural Review Committee) are in open discussion regarding the tile roofs and insurance in our 56 home, HOA community in central Florida.

The discussion is centered around one homeowner who was seeking homeowners insurance and the the price of the insurance policy saw a significant increase in premium due to the cost of a replacement roof as the tile roof is now 30 years old. The insurance policy was increased to cover the cost of a replacement roof. I do believe that the elderly homeowner had their home insurance lapse due to an oversight on their part.

The HOA and the ARC are now discussing whether or not to allow different roof styles (asphalt, rubber tile and metal).

Have other HOA's experience anything like this? I would think that the insurance companies can generally state any reason to increase premiums and I wonder what the true shelf life of a tile roof is.

Looking forward to any and all comments regarding this matter. If there is a similar post regarding this subject, would someone please direct me to it. Many thanks!

The 56 homes are detached, stand alone homes.ir is a clubhouse with a tile roof as well and the HOA is obviously responsible for the upkeep. That insurance policy did not go up substantially. Nor did the insurance policy of my personal home. I can not speak for other homeowners if they saw increases this year.

I would agree that if they were condos and the owners had a choice of what style roof they wanted, it would not look pleasing to the eye.

With all the homes having tile roofs, it made our community unique and desirable when built.

Thirty years later, there is this talk about allowing owners to deviate from the tile roof as it could put undue stress on ones' finances. I should note that there are a majority of single elderly homeowners. Thirty eight homes (68%) are occupied by those who are retired.

1. How much less will your houses sell for when you have mixed roofing materials in the community?

2. How quickly do your houses sell now vs. houses with different style roofs? In other words, there are communities with a lot of for sale signs and others with hardly any. How likely is your situation to change for the worse?

3. Which of the following benefits of tile roofing are you willing to forego?

https://tileroofing.org/why-tile/durability-longevity/

4. I have asphalt roofing. Good for 20-25 yrs. You have tile roofing. Supposedly good for 50-100 years (maybe not in FL though).

5. What John said.

I don't recall seeing it asked. Do your covenants specify roofing material?

If it does, then unless the covenants are amended, there is no option for the Association but to comply with the covenants.

If it does not, then I don't see an issue in allowing owners of detached homes to choose a different material.
Try to match the color of the tile would be a good compromise.

I second (or third?) what John said. There's another discussion on this website about a special assessment, and the poster noted the challenge in approving a special assessment or even an increase on regular assessments because the documents require a homeowner vote. I said most people don't vote on paying more for anything unless they absolutely have to, and unfortunately, some of the older homeowners vote things down because they figure they'll be gone (from the community or the planet) by the time you can no longer kick the can down the road.

But when you own a home, you have to plan as best as you can for replacements and major repairs because using things day in and out will cause them to wear out sooner or later. These folks will have to decide do they keep costs down or risk roof leaks or worse because the old roofs aren't doing the job anymore.

In the meantime, I might bring over a contractor and ask him or her to make some recommendations as to what would work best for the community. Function and safety is the first priority and even with all these material choices, there may be some that are more in harmony with the style of the house - perhaps the board could come up with a few and use that for a design standard to use for exterior change requests.

Jim, look further down the road. Technology is rapidly changing. "tile" roofs are being replaced with solar tiles, as are other types of roofing materials. Who knows, in five or ten more years the percentage of people with rooftop PV systems may be near 70% of all households. The aesthetics of communities need to change with technology.

I'm with JohnC. A mix of old tile and new whatever roofs would be unsightly and diminish the property values in your HOA. Some uniformity really is a good thing. Tile should indeed last 100 years.

We have a large public Spanish colonial building complex from the 1920s with tile roofs near our HOA. The entire complex was rehabbed into shops, restaurants, etc. Every roof tile from the old structure was removed, numbered, etc. and replaced on the final project. Excellent!

To Mike: Does who really believe what????