HOUSTON – A northeast Houston man is considering taking out a loan to rebuild his roof after his insurance dropped him.
Wilburt Cooper said his insurance company, Conifer, based in Michigan, dropped him after he refused to get a new roof.
“They told me to put a new roof on and I have these pine needles on my house,” Cooper told KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun. “I was telling them, ‘this is a 30-year roof. I’ve only been here 20 (to) 23 years, I still have a couple more years, but they told me they still want me to replace the roof.
Cooper was given the notice in March. Then on the first of May, he got a letter from the company letting him know he was dropped from the policy.
“(I’ve) been through all these storms that done came through. I can say I’m blessed because I didn’t get any damage out of none of those storms, but this windstorm come through and just tear up everything,” Cooper said referencing Hurricane Beryl.
The storm is to blame for two trees falling on his home neither on his property.
“I don’t mind paying for insurance but when you get dropped like that it just makes you upset,” Cooper said. “They’re not going to talk to me, they don’t have a reason, because I’m not with them anymore.”
Leash Yu, with Yu Insurance Agency, told KPRC 2 Amy Davis during “Ask Amy” most insurance companies stay away from people with older roofs.
Amy Davis: “I wanted to talk to you about one thing that homeowners’ insurance companies look at a lot is your roof. I mean, a very important a big expense in your home. They don’t want to let your roof get older than a certain age. Yeah. What is that?”
Leash Yu: “So every carrier is a little different. But if you’re already a client and you’re being at being renewed by them, it’s typically about 15 to 20 years. If you’re trying to buy new insurance right now with a new carrier that you’re not a client with. They could say, hey, if your roof is older than one year, we’re not interested. Most of them look at, like, maybe a ten-year period of time. But the older the roof gets, the harder it is to insure. And so, 15 years, you were really kind of playing with fire there. 20 plus years, you might as well not even ask.”