Texas roofing marketing timed to each metro's hail months

Your site can sell the inspection, the photos and the paperwork. It cannot sound like you will handle the homeowner's insurance claim for them.

TDI has a page for contractors called Roofing and insurance: Know the law. It 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 points to a state insurance rule that counts a website as an advertisement. So the claims page, the blog and the Google profile all count. The Texas law that keeps contractors from acting as adjusters applies even when the roofer holds an adjuster license. It applies even with a power of attorney from the homeowner.

In Texas the deductible is a criminal line, not a pricing choice. A seller who offers to pay, waive, absorb or rebate the homeowner's deductible, in an ad or a promise, commits a Class B misdemeanor unless the insurer consents. Helping the owner avoid it any other way counts too. So "we cover your deductible" cannot appear in an ad, on a yard sign or in a canvasser's pitch. Texas's deductible law also reaches any contract of $1,000 or more expected to be paid from a property claim. That contract must print the law's deductible notice in at least 12-point bold type.

Texas insurance law 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. A payment plan with the contractor is one form it lists. So letting an owner pay the deductible over time is 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. The deceptive trade practices law also reaches "knowingly making false or misleading statements of fact concerning the need for parts, replacement, or repair service". When the conduct was knowing, its damages section allows up to three times economic damages. Picture a door hanger announcing "your roof has hail damage" before anyone has climbed it. That is the kind of statement the law reaches. "Free inspection, with photos of every slope" is not.

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

Texas now treats a sales text like a sales call. Whether you must register with the state before texting depends on how you got the number.

Since September 1, 2025, SB 140 counts a text sent to induce a purchase as a telephone solicitation. That puts sales texts under the state's telemarketer registration law. The bill left that law's exemptions alone. Those exemptions, plus the Secretary of State's view on consent, 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. The exemption for repair offers covers soliciting a contract to maintain or repair something the homeowner bought from you. It sets 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. That one asks that you have traded under one name for two years or more.
• Calls that only book the inspection. Another exemption covers a caller who does not try to close the sale on the phone. The sales pitch waits for a face-to-face meeting. Nobody goes out 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. This lane needs a registration per calling location, a $200 filing fee and a $10,000 security, renewed yearly, per the Secretary of State. It also says deciding whether to register is the seller's responsibility.

Registration is only one question. Three more Texas rules apply in every lane:

• Calling hours. Texas's calling-hours law allows calls from noon to 9 p.m. on Sunday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on other days. The caller gives their name, the business and the purpose, unless the homeowner asked for the call.
• The no-call list. A number on the state list is off limits to telemarketing 60 days after it appears. The attorney general can seek up to $1,000 a violation, or $3,000 if knowing, under the no-call penalty law.
• Federal violations. A text or call that breaks the federal TCPA can cost $500 per message under Texas law, up to $1,500 if knowing.

Federal consent rules apply in every lane too. Our texting and AI answering playbook covers them. Which lane a list belongs in is a call for counsel, not for us or this page. Have one review any storm-week campaign before it sends.

Between storms, sell an inspection before the insurance renewal. Two TDI actions in September 2026 put roof condition, not roof age, at the center of that pitch.

A Texas insurance rule already bars insurers from declining or non-renewing a home policy on roof age alone. On September 29, TDI filed a proposed clarification of that roof-age rule. It was published October 9 and is not yet adopted. By TDI's own account, it does not change what the rule means. Physical condition is still fair grounds. 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. A roof in poor condition may not be covered at all. So "Find out what condition it is in before your renewal" is accurate. The same page says the insurer inspects the roof at application. It also tells owners to hire an inspector every few years.

The second action came on September 16. A commissioner's bulletin encouraged insurers to offer "meaningful, actuarially supported premium discounts" for FORTIFIED construction and impact-resistant roofing. It also asked them to tell policyholders about those discounts. It sets no amount, as FOX 4 reported. TDI's roofing credit page says each company sets its own discount by class, with Class 4 earning the highest. Each company also 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 and that you complete the paperwork. It tells the homeowner to 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.