Have You Heard of House Bill 2102?

Have you heard of House Bill 2102? If you have been waiting to replace or repair your roof, you need to know that in Texas, a new law has been passed concerning roof repair and replacement services. Beginning the first of September in 2019, HB 2102 is a new law requiring every homeowner in Texas to pay their homeowners deductible insurance.

However, they are allowed by HB 2102 to pay your deductibles in installment. For many homeowners, it can still be overwhelming to pay in installments if you can’t cover the payments due to a lack of funding. On the other hand, it is to the advantage of the homeowner to follow the new law, as it protects you from shoddy workmanship.

Most homeowners know that ignoring roof damage and hoping it will go away on its own is just not an option. When you attempt to get lower insurance company deductibles, this means that your premiums become higher. One option is to complete an approved credit application and choose from monthly payment terms that range from one year to five years.

A Newly Approved Law

The way your insurance company handles your claim will change under this newly-approved law. As a new state law, this House Bill has provisions that your insurer could refuse to pay for claims for withheld cost replacements hold back until there is ample evidence that your deductibles have been paid. The following can be requested by your insurer to check:

A copy of an executed contract for an installment plan
Statements of your credit card
Receipts for a money order
Canceled checks
Other finance arrangements paying the full deductible amounts over time

Protection For Homeowners

These measures may seem extreme but this protects you as a homeowner from disreputable contractors that end up costing you more money over time with botched roofing jobs. You will be protected from sub-par contractors that leave you with an incomplete roof or take your insurance money.

New Requirements

This affects the roofing contractor you will work with. Any roofing contractor under the new Texas House Bill 2102 offering to waive your property insurance deductibles can face criminal charges. Thus, it is now a requirement to state in boldface language on the contract that you need to pay deductibles under your property’s insurance policies.

It is now a criminal offense for roofing contractors to offset your insurance deductibles, rebate your insurance deductibles, absorb your insurance deductibles, waive your insurance deductibles or pay your insurance deductibles under the new House Bill 2102.

You will also violate the law if you allow or knowingly submit claims to be submitted which have reduced or waived deductibles. As a consumer, this new law protects you from door-to-door onslaughts of roofers that come to your house after every storm in Texas offering to work on your roof, but producing sub-par results.

Take Full Advantage

Signed on June 14, 2018, by Greg Abbott, Texas governor, HB 2101 states that homeowners in North Texas can take full advantage of a free roof. Before this law, roofing contractors had the common practice of offering to waive your deductibles to get you a newer roof due to wind damage or hail.

Technically, even if this has not been legal in Texas since 1989, this statute was not written very well so there was not a lot of enforcement. However, enforcement is now possible with the new HB 2102 law.

Before the New Law

In the past, before HB 2102, many homeowners were lured into signing deductible-eating contracts based on promises of a lower deductible or a free roof. Many policyholders were unknowingly duped into committing fraud against their insurance companies.

This was particularly true when they would submit requests according to their policies for RCV or replacement cost hold back and failed to tell their company for insurance that the part of the claim where the deductibles were had not been incurred.

Texas consumers, dent-repair companies, contractors and roofers will need to be notified about this most recent change to the governing laws of the industry so as not to make a mistake on the contracts drawn due to misinformation.

Don’t Fall for Illegal Contracts

House Bill 2102 has made it illegal for roofing companies and other contractors to promise rebates for all or part of the deductibles or to waive an insurance deductible. Violaters could receive 180 days of jail time and up to a two thousand dollar fine.