Here’s the sequence, and I’ve watched it play out more times than I can count.
A storm comes through. You file a claim. The adjuster comes out, writes it up, and the carrier sends a check that’s smaller than the estimate. Something more urgent happens — a medical bill, a job change, a transmission. The roof is still keeping water out, mostly. The check goes somewhere else.
Two years later you decide to sell, and the roof becomes the single thing standing between you and a closing.
Nick Disney. We buy houses across Bexar County, and roofs are the most common reason a San Antonio deal that looked fine on Monday is dead by Friday. Let me walk the whole thing forward so you can see where it breaks.
Why the Check Was Smaller Than the Estimate
Most Texas roof policies pay in two pieces.
The first piece is the depreciated value — what the roof was worth given its age, not what a new one costs. That’s the check you got. The second piece is the difference between that and the full replacement cost, and the carrier releases it after the work is done and invoiced.
If you never did the work, you never claimed the second piece. For most homeowners, that’s the larger half.
There’s usually a deadline on it too. Policies typically give you a window to complete the work and submit the invoice. Past that, the money is gone.
The other thing that stopped people: San Antonio wind and hail deductibles are frequently a percentage of your dwelling coverage, not a flat dollar amount. On a house insured for $300,000, a two percent wind-and-hail deductible is $6,000 before the carrier pays anything. A lot of claims look much worse once that lands, and plenty of people quietly decided not to proceed.
Where the Sale Actually Breaks
Three separate parties can stop a deal over this, and they’re not the same party.
The appraiser notes the roof condition and may call for repairs as a condition of value.
The lender reads that and conditions funding on the repair being completed. Now your buyer cannot close until the roof is done.
The buyer’s insurance carrier — and this is the one that surprises everybody — may simply decline to write a new policy on a house with a damaged roof. No policy means no mortgage, regardless of what the appraiser said. Your buyer can be fully approved and still be unable to close, because the thing that failed isn’t the loan.
That third one is why a hail-damaged roof is a different problem than, say, a dated kitchen. A dated kitchen narrows what fixer-upper buyers will pay. A damaged roof removes the financed buyer pool entirely.
Worth knowing that the same thing is happening with flood coverage in parts of Bexar County right now — insurability, not condition, is increasingly what decides who can buy your house.
Disclosure, Answered Straight
Texas sellers have obligations around known defects and prior claims, and the standard disclosure form asks about them.
Disclose it.
Not because I’m being pious about it, but because carriers share claims history. When your buyer shops insurance, the claim shows up in a loss history report on the property. If you said nothing, you’ve now got a buyer who thinks you hid something, three weeks into a contract, with a lender waiting. That deal is over and your credibility goes with it.
Disclosed up front, it’s a negotiating item. Discovered later, it’s a dead deal.
What to Have in Front of You When You Call
Before you phone the carrier, pull these together. The call goes very differently when you have them.
The claim number and date of loss. If you can’t find it, they can look it up by address and name, but it’s slower.
The adjuster’s estimate from the original claim. That document shows the full replacement cost and the depreciation that was withheld — which is the number you’re trying to find out whether you can still collect.
What you actually received. Check your records for the amount of the first payment. The gap between that and the estimate total is what’s potentially still on the table.
The age of the roof. Not when the claim was filed — when the roof was installed. Carriers increasingly underwrite on roof age independent of damage, and a roof past a certain age can be hard to insure even in good condition. That affects your buyer as much as the hail did.
Then ask one question plainly: is the recoverable depreciation on this claim still available if I complete the work, and by when?
Write down who you spoke to and what they said.
Your Three Options, Priced Honestly
Do the repair and collect the rest of the claim. Best net outcome by a wide margin if you can swing it. You pay the roofer, submit the invoice, and the carrier releases the depreciation you left on the table. You sell a house with a new roof into the full buyer pool. The catch is cash up front and time, and if the claim is old the window to collect may have closed. Call your carrier and ask before you assume either way.
Sell to a financed buyer with a repair credit. Possible, narrow. You’re asking a buyer to accept a credit for work their own lender may require done before funding, and their insurer may not cooperate. It works sometimes. It falls apart often.
Sell as-is. Nobody paying cash is shopping homeowner’s insurance to close, and no lender is setting conditions, so neither wall exists. You take less money, and what you’re buying with that difference is the removal of three failure points. It costs nothing to find out what a cash offer looks like on a house with a damaged roof and compare it against a roofer’s quote. If the claim window has closed and you don’t have the cash for a roof, this is frequently the only path that actually ends in a closing.
One Thing to Ask, Not Assume
Whether unpaid claim proceeds transfer to a buyer at closing is a real question and I’m not going to give you a blanket answer, because it depends on the policy, the carrier, and how the title company handles it.
Ask both. Ask your carrier what happens to an open claim if the property sells. Ask the title company how they want it handled on the settlement statement. Get the answer before you’re under contract, not during.
After the Storm, People Ask
Q: Do I have to tell the buyer about a hail claim from three years ago? A: Texas disclosure covers known defects and prior claims, and claims history is visible to carriers anyway. Disclose it. A buyer who learns it from their insurer instead of from you will walk.
Q: Can I still collect the rest of the claim money? A: Maybe. Policies generally set a window to complete work and submit the invoice. Call your carrier with the claim number and ask directly — it’s a two-minute phone call and it can be worth thousands.
Q: Will a lender fund on a hail-damaged roof? A: Often not. More to the point, the buyer’s insurance carrier may refuse to write a policy at all, and without insurance the loan can’t close regardless of the lender’s position.
Q: My carrier didn’t renew me after the claim. Can I still sell? A: Yes, but it narrows things. A non-renewal makes the property harder to insure for the next owner, which pushes you toward buyers who don’t need insurance to close.
Q: Does an open claim have to be closed before closing on the house? A: Ask the title company early. How open claims are handled at settlement varies, and it’s not something to discover the week of closing.
Q: Is it worth doing the roof just to sell? A: If you can recover the withheld depreciation and you have the cash, usually yes — you’re spending partly the carrier’s money to reach a much larger buyer pool. If the claim window closed, the math gets a lot worse.
Storm damage doesn’t ruin a sale. An unrepaired claim that nobody addressed until week three of a contract does.
Make two phone calls this week: your carrier, about whether the depreciation is still recoverable, and a roofer, for a real number. Then you’ll know which of the three paths you’re actually on.
If the answer is that the window closed and the cash isn’t there, we buy San Antonio houses with storm damage unrepaired — or call (210) 201-6644.