Texas roofing marketing timed to each metro's hail months

TDI's page for contractors, Roofing and insurance: Know the law, tells roofers to make sure their "websites, ads, and other materials don't say or imply" they will act as both contractor and adjuster. Its examples of improper language are specific enough to search your own site for:

• offering to negotiate claim settlements or file a claim for the policyholder;
• promising to recover "every dime you are owed";
• advertising help avoiding "incorrect settlement pricing";
• saying you represent the policyholder or can speak for them on coverage.

The same page cites 28 Texas Administrative Code 21.102(1), which defines an advertisement to include a website, so the claims page, the blog and the Google profile all count. Insurance Code 4102.163 applies even when the roofer holds an adjuster license or a power of attorney from the homeowner.

In Texas the deductible is a criminal line, not a pricing choice. Under Business and Commerce Code 27.02, a seller who advertises or promises, without the insurer's consent, to pay, waive, absorb or rebate the homeowner's deductible, or to help them avoid it any other way, commits a Class B misdemeanor. So "we cover your deductible" cannot appear in an ad, on a yard sign or in a canvasser's pitch. Any contract of $1,000 or more expected to be paid from a property claim must also print the deductible notice set out in section 27.02(b), in at least 12-point bold type.

Insurance Code 707.002 says the same from the homeowner's side: the insured "shall pay any deductible". TDI adds that an insurer may ask for proof of payment, and a payment plan with the contractor is one form it lists. Letting an owner pay the deductible over time is therefore a different offer from waiving it. That is our reading of two statutes; have counsel approve the wording before it runs.

Marketing should sell the inspection, not the verdict. Section 17.46(b)(13) reaches "knowingly making false or misleading statements of fact concerning the need for parts, replacement, or repair service", and section 17.50 allows up to three times economic damages when the conduct was knowing. A door hanger announcing "your roof has hail damage" before anyone has climbed it is the kind of statement that provision reaches. "Free inspection, with photos of every slope" is not.

TDI's scam checklist also tells homeowners what a trustworthy bid looks like: on letterhead with a phone number and address, and never a contract saying the owner agrees to repairs "for the value of insurance proceeds". If your paperwork already matches it, say so on the estimate page.

Since September 1, 2025, SB 140 counts a text sent to induce a purchase as a telephone solicitation under chapter 302, the registration chapter. The bill left that chapter's exemptions alone. Together with the Secretary of State's view on consent, they sort a roofer's storm-week outreach into four lanes:

• People who asked. Form fills, callers and estimate requests. The Secretary of State says a business texting with "prior consent of the consumer" does not have to file the registration statement. This is the lane to build.
• Roofs you installed. Section 302.058 exempts soliciting a contract to maintain or repair an item the homeowner bought from you, with no test on your business name, so a post-storm check offered to your own install list fits here. A homeowner you only did gutters for falls under its second test, which asks that you have traded under one name for two years or more.
• Calls that only book the inspection. Section 302.059 exempts a caller who does not try to close the sale on the phone, leaves the sales presentation for a face-to-face meeting, and does not send anyone to collect payment right after the call. A setter who books the roof inspection and nothing more may fit; one who quotes and takes a deposit on the call does not.
• Everything else, such as a bought list pitched on the phone: a registration per calling location, a $200 filing fee and a $10,000 security, renewed yearly, per the Secretary of State, which also says deciding whether to register is the seller's responsibility.

Chapter 302 only decides registration. Calls follow section 301.051 in every lane: noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on other days, with the caller's name, the business and the purpose stated, unless the homeowner asked for the call. A number on the state no-call list, republished each quarter, is off limits to telemarketing 60 days after it appears under section 304.052, and the attorney general can seek up to $1,000 a violation, or $3,000 if knowing, under section 304.252. Separately, a text or call that breaks the federal TCPA can cost $500 per message under section 305.053, up to $1,500 if knowing.

Federal consent rules apply in every lane; see the texting and AI answering playbook. Which lane a list belongs in is a call for counsel, not for us or this page, so have one review any storm-week campaign before it sends.

Two TDI actions in September 2026 put roof condition, not roof age, at the center of the off-season pitch. Texas already bars insurers from declining or non-renewing a home policy on the age of the house or its components, roofing included, under 28 TAC 21.1006; decisions on physical condition are still allowed. On September 29, TDI filed a proposed clarification of that rule, published October 9 and not yet adopted, which by TDI's own account does not change what the rule means. So "your old roof will get you dropped" is the wrong pitch in Texas.

Age can still cost an owner coverage another way: TDI's roof page says some companies switch aging roofs to actual cash value, and a roof in poor condition may not be covered at all. "Find out what condition it is in before your renewal" is accurate, and the same page says the insurer inspects the roof at application and tells owners to hire an inspector every few years.

On September 16, Commissioner's Bulletin B-0008-26 encouraged insurers to offer "meaningful, actuarially supported premium discounts" for FORTIFIED construction and impact-resistant roofing, and to tell policyholders about them. It sets no amount, as FOX 4 reported. TDI's roofing credit page says each company sets its own discount by class, Class 4 earning the highest, and decides what paperwork the contractor submits. For a TWIA credit the contractor completes form PC068.

So the honest Class 4 page says what the shingle is rated, that you complete the paperwork, and that the homeowner should ask their own insurer for the number. Never print a percentage. The pressure behind those questions is real: homeowners premium written in Texas reached $18.7 billion in 2024, up 20.8%, as Insurance Journal reported from Insurance Council of Texas data.