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The Role of Resilient Roofs in Insurance Stability
The roofing industry in Oklahoma faces unique challenges that deeply affect homeowners, contractors, and insurance companies alike. Scott from McRoof pulls back the curtain on the complex and often contentious world of roofing and insurance claims in the heart of Tornado Alley.
Drawing from decades of experience in construction and roofing, Scott shares how his company was built on a foundation of technical competency and consumer education rather than high-pressure sales tactics. He explains the crucial distinction between "roofing salesmen" and what his company employs: "solution specialists" who focus on creating genuine solutions for homeowners facing storm damage.
At the core of Scott's philosophy is what he calls "the edge of the coin" - maintaining perfect balance between homeowner and insurance company interests through accurate damage assessment and fair pricing. This approach stands in stark contrast to the adversarial climate that's developed in recent years, where desk adjusters frequently override on-site inspections, creating frustration for all parties involved.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Scott discusses how advanced roofing technologies can dramatically improve resilience against Oklahoma's severe weather. These systems, while requiring higher initial investment, can withstand up to two-inch hail and even EF1/EF2 tornadoes without significant damage.
For listeners wondering how to protect themselves when selecting a roofing contractor, Scott offers practical advice for spotting red flags and essential credentials to verify. From checking the Construction Industries Board registration to verifying manufacturer credentials, these tips provide a roadmap for finding trustworthy professionals in an industry sometimes known for storm-chasing opportunists.
Want to better protect your home and potentially contribute to lowering insurance premiums across Oklahoma? Listen now to discover how building better roofing systems could transform both individual homes and the state's insurance landscape.
https://mcroof.us/
https://www.facebook.com/mcroofokc
https://oklahoma.gov/cib.html
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Thank you. Thank you, Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Build With BBB podcast. Today on the podcast we have a very special guest. We have owner of McRoof Scott. We are going to be talking about the insurance crisis in Oklahoma, the roofing industry in general, things consumers might need to know about vetting and really finding trustworthy businesses to work on their home All the things that.
Speaker 2:I think that you're going to knock it out of the park. Things I'm passionate about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Scott, welcome to the podcast. We're glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I appreciate it, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:I like to start off the podcast always with a super easy question.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Just you know, make it easy. Yeah sure, an easy intro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, throw me a softball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tell us about your business, how it started and what you do here in Oklahoma and who you serve.
Speaker 2:Well, business is McRoofus. We formed McRoofus in North Texas in 2006 after a 40-plus year career in commercial and residential construction of all types, years and years and years as a home builder and as a high-end luxury remodel things like that and my wife and I were really just looking for something that we could narrow the scope and we could do something very, very well and get done and actually finish a project instead of being in it for year after year after year and hopefully get paid and go on down the road with a happy client. So that's what we look at. Okay, where do we live? We live in Hale Belt, tornado Alley, so we're going to have a recurring customer base, obviously. So that was part of the equation for us. We looked at all the trades that we had ever been associated with in all of our construction businesses and we kind of started to narrow it down. I'd been a trim carpenter for a long time and done subcarpentry for other contractors as a side business, really kind of like the cabinet side of things, and we ultimately started looking at the roofing business and said you know, this is a business where the consuming marketplace is very underserved. We didn't like what consumers were given by the roofing business and said you know, this is a business where the consuming marketplace is very underserved. We didn't like what consumers were given by the roofing industry and we thought perhaps we could do it better. We had a different idea about how we would want to do that, what it would look like.
Speaker 2:I had years and years of experience with my own roofing company doing all of my work, forming my subcontractor, in other words. So I knew a lot about roofing, but I didn't want to do it like everybody else in the world. So I didn't want to nail one manufacturer shingle today and another one next week and do something different all the time. It didn't seem like a repeatable, efficient process to me. So I started looking at the major manufacturers and for years I had used CertainTeed products on my construction projects. Very good friends with the territory rep in North Texas at the time Started asking a lot of questions, really digging and comparing the major roofing manufacturers in North America in terms of what their product offerings were. What is their R&D? How much money and effort do they put into being cutting edge? Where are they in the development of new products and technologies that are better going to serve the marketplace? How do they support their contractor network? What do their credentialing and education programs look like? Certain Teeds is one that you cannot buy your credential. You actually have to earn your credentials with CertainTeed. So I liked that and it gave us a starting place to get into building systems.
Speaker 2:Roofs that's a whole bunch of component parts that are all manufactured by one manufacturer. In other words, you don't have a bunch of finger pointing if something goes wrong. If you've built a system's roof and it's all CertainTeed, then CertainTeed can't point a finger and say oh, that's somebody else's ice and water, that's somebody else's underlayment or that's somebody else's starter course, we're not responsible for the problem you're having on your roof to the consumers. So we settled on CertainTeed and we've been a CertainTeed only contractor ever since we opened the doors. We do one thing better than anybody else in the marketplace does. We built CertainTeed integrity roof systems and that's what we do. That's what we're known for.
Speaker 1:And this is important to your business because it comes back to taking care of your customers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's where everything starts with us is. We built our business around what the consumer's needs are and how we can deliver to them an experience. You know, let's admit, in Oklahoma or North Texas or the Hell Belt, tornado Alley, however you want to define that most roof replacements are being done in the context of an insurance claim, a storm restoration claim. So there is a degree of expertise and professionalism that is required to be able to honor the relationships in storm restoration, to be able to honor the relationships in storm restoration. In storm restoration, you have a contractual relationship between a homeowner or a business owner who has an insurance contract on their property and their insurer. That is a contractual obligation between those parties. The insured has duties to the insurer and the insurer certainly has duties to the insurer and the insurer certainly has duties to the insured.
Speaker 2:What happens in storm restoration that is really really ugly, and the part of it that a lot of people get caught up in, unfortunately, is where someone is not honoring those relationships and that someone could be a roofing contractor, that someone could be an adjuster, that someone could be a public adjuster, that someone could be the insurance company not operating in good faith, that someone could actually be a consumer who is not honestly depicting what their damages related to that particular storm event are and who are not paying their deductible and taking care of business the way that they're supposed to. So there's a whole lot of parties to that and that's where it really gets ugly and really gets messy is when the parties aren't honoring their obligations one to the other. So the way that McRoof approaches storm restoration, insurance restoration and we have all the credentials I'm a licensed public adjuster but I don't use that in the context of my roofing business. I use that from a not standpoint to teach and train my people and to be able to serve my friends in the roofing industry and their clients who might need some help from time to time. But what we do is we start out with the idea that we have a duty and an obligation to a mutual client. When the insured becomes our client, they are a mutual client of ours and the insurance company. We have a duty to the insured, but we have a duty to the insurance company as well, and that duty is to accurately and honestly determine what the damages related to that storm event are. Those damages don't include all the deferred maintenance around the house. Those damages don't include the garage door that the teenage son ran into with the bumper of the car. Those damages don't include the fence section of the backyard that the kids have knocked over playing ball and things like that. Those damages are specifically damages that are related to the event that happened, typically in Oklahoma. We're talking about wind, hail, water or tornado or some combination therein.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is is that I have to build and have built the technical competency within my team to understand what storm damage is and, more importantly probably, what storm damage is not Okay. And so when we do an inspection, which is the starting place for anyone, you know, any relationship that we're going to enter into, the starting place is what we call a qualified inspection, and I tell everyone I say it every week on the radio, I tell everyone to listen A qualified roof inspection is not a roofing salesman telling you you need to file an insurance claim. Okay, very often a qualified roof inspection is not a licensed home inspector evaluating your roof. Roofing inspectors have credentials In our company. We have. Our credentials are built around a company called Hague Engineering. Hague Engineering trains a significant portion of insurance adjusters throughout the country. They train damage assessors and engineers and all kinds of people in storm damage investigation. Okay.
Speaker 2:So we kind of build a depth of technical competency around the Hague credentials. Not everyone can have those. Someone just coming into the business can't have a Hague credential but we still use our credentials to build that person's technical competency because I have them on the roof. We call it boots on the roof. I have them, boots on the roof, side by side with one of my other Hague certified inspectors and they're learning every step of the way what that's like. They get on the roof with my inspectors, with adjusters, okay, so they understand what that whole process is like. And then, as we get them to a point where they have the book, learning part of it and they're starting to build the experience, then we'll let them start to go and do their own inspections, write their own reports and present them to one of us to review and comment on, and then from time to time say, hey, I think we need to go back out and get on this roof together because we're not seeing exactly what you saw. That's how we build that technical competency and my people are not roofing salesmen, my people are solution specialists. That's what their title is. That's how they get compensated. They get compensated for creating solutions for homeowners, business owners.
Speaker 2:That doesn't always mean filing a claim, that doesn't always mean selling them a roof. There's a whole lot of other things that can come into play in the context of how we roll out storm restoration services, and so that's a difference, I think, in the way that we approach it, but when it comes to the point of honoring those relationships the insured and the insurance company I call it the edge of the coin. It's a visual that I've always drawn for my people. Our job is to keep that coin standing on its edge, and if we, if you saying this to any of my people, if you let that coin fall one way or the other, you have not done your job. What does that mean? It means that you have done an honest and accurate evaluation of what the damage is. You have done an honest, accurate and up-to-date current price on what the value of that damage is, and you have not asked the insurance company. When we rewrite the claim, or we write the claim and send it to the insurance company, you have not asked the insurance company for one dime that they do not owe.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's the edge of the coin and that's what does not get honored and respected in the storm restoration space, and it's the reason we have these huge pendulum swings on how claims are handled, how claims are paid. Okay, it is the insurance companies who are getting their brains beat out. Believe me, it's the insurance company's reaction to their perception that insureds, contractors, independent adjusters, public adjusters and attorneys are taking advantage of the insurance companies. So you get this huge divide and you get everybody casting stones, everybody blaming everybody else, and we never really make any progress in terms of draining the swamp or cleaning it up.
Speaker 2:Okay, we used to collaborate, excuse me, we used to collaborate on claims with insurance companies, meaning that someone like myself or my son or someone that's got a lot of experience and a lot of credentials and most of my people at this point in their careers would get on a roof with an insurance adjuster. We would agree exactly what the damage is. We know how the pricing is structured because it comes from Xactimate, the industry standard for how insurance companies price their claims, and so we knew what to expect and everybody's in agreement and they would go to their office or they would send their photographs and documentation on the claim to the back office or whatever, and in a day or two the insured would get a claim summary and it would be almost exactly what we had agreed to and within dollars of what we expected the dollar amount to be. That is not what happens anymore. Okay, we now go and we get on that roof with that adjuster and we agree to what is there and they tell us what they're going to do, and it ends up going to a desk adjuster someone in that back office who looks at photographs, looks at documentation, who has never been on that roof, has not put as on it, okay and they decide that no, we're not going to pay for that roof when you've already had a qualified inspector and a qualified adjuster on the roof who says in some cases we've had it where they've had a conversation with the insured before they left, telling the insured that I'm going to pay for this, this, this, this, this and this, and that you should get your paperwork in a week or 10 days, and the desk adjuster decides that they're not going to pay for that Sight unseen.
Speaker 2:So it's a whole different world that we're dealing with now than what it was before. So that's the reason that our technical competency and our expertise in terms of the claim side of things has to get better and better and better, and we're starting to use a lot of different tools. We're starting to use things that we've never used before. We are fairly big into drone technology. Now we're using drones, and we're using drones with AI and we are literally training the AI to understand what storm damage is versus all the other anomalies that could exist on a roof. Okay, so it's a process, you know, and we're getting there slowly but surely, but ideally, at some point in time we'll get to a place again where the insurance companies will be able to quit spending money sending adjusters out into the field. Okay, they pretty much don't send adjusters into the field now. Anyway, it's typically what we call a ladder assist or maybe an independent adjuster. The days of insurance companies having staff adjusters for the most part is long gone, okay, so typically we're getting someone who's not even a licensed adjuster doing what we call a ladder assist and making that initial determination in the field. We can do better than that with qualified inspectors, like I have, and with the AI that we're in the process of training right now. We can do better than what they're getting right now, and they won't have to incur that cost. But what's it going to take to get there? They're going to have to trust the data that we give them, and that's the huge divide right now is there is zero trust.
Speaker 2:I get thrown under the bus with every other roofing contractor in the country, including the ones that are in the penitentiary. I get thrown under that same bus by the roofing industry, regardless of my standing, regardless of my credentials industry, regardless of my standing, regardless of my credentials, regardless of my education, my experience and my reputation, I still get thrown under the bus by the insurance companies. I have a claim right now where an insurer has been denied three times twice on a boots-on-the-roof inspection and a third time with the drone technology and the insurance company has denied the claim three times. It's a $10,000 claim. It's a small claim, $10,000 claim. They've probably spent more than $10,000 denying it by now and yet they forced me to have to go that extra mile, extract myself from the whole thing for my client. Tell him I cannot be your roofer, I will not be your public adjuster, but I will be your appraiser and go to the insurance department and file a complaint and demand appraisal on that claim.
Speaker 1:Let's go down the line of building better and resiliency and better roofing systems, and all of that for clients. Tell me about your process and what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Okay, so when one of my solution specialists has someone that actually has damage and needs a new roof, we're going to go through that entire process, through the insurance process. As far as the storm restoration goes, the first thing that my solution specialist is doing after the initial inspection of the roof itself. Okay, we're going to look, ask for and look at the insurance contract. We want to know what the conditions are. We want to know how much their deductible is. We want to know whether they have replacement cost coverage or actual cash value. We need to know if they have any kind of coverage for ordinance of law, which is the code coverage, the things that will be required to bring their roof up to the current building codes that if they don't have that coverage, that becomes an out-of-pocket expense for them instead of from the insurance company paying for it. We want to know what the exclusionary conditions in the policy are, what all the endorsements are and things like that. Because I say to my friends in the roofing industry all the time how can you recommend to someone that they file an insurance claim when you don't even know what the conditions of their policy are? Ok, you've got to be able to evaluate everything relative to what a consumer's anticipated out of pocket is. So we actually have created and I have copyrighted a a document called. We call it Oops, and it is an out-of-pocket scenario and that's what it is. And so one of the very first things that anyone on my team does in terms of on the solution side of things is we sit down with a client and we show them their anticipated oops before they ever file a claim. In other words, here's your deductible for wind and hail. Here's your non-recoverable depreciation. Here are the code items that you do not have coverage for and we cannot build your roof if we don't bring it up to the current code. Here are the optional upgrades that you should strongly consider. The impact-resistant technology, the fortified roofing system, things like that Show them an out-of-pocket scenario for them, so they know, before they ever file that claim, they have been advised as to what their potential out-of-pocket is going to look like once we get the claim properly settled. So it's an educated decision and, as I just said, when we go through that oops, we are then educating and encouraging everyone that not only are we showing you impact-resistant technology and fortified roofing systems and other building-better practices like systems, roofs, enhanced warranties, all of those kinds of things, that, yes, they have a dollar cost associated with them, but I will not refer to that as a cost. That is an investment. It's an investment in the protection of your home and your family and everything in it. It is also an investment in the welfare of every citizen in the state of Oklahoma, because your investment in building better practices is going to come back to everyone in the form of reduced insurance premiums.
Speaker 2:It is critical that people quit looking at a roof as a commodity. Roof is the most important. Next to the foundation. The roof is the most important structure that there is on your home or business. It's what protects you from everything that mother nature can throw at us, and we know what that is in Oklahoma. Okay, but we have technologies that will keep people from having to replace asphalt shingle roofs every time there's a nickel and dime hailstorm. We have technologies that will stand up to, we have systems, methodologies that will stand up to F1 and F2 tornadoes without having significant damage. And if we can do that, if we can eliminate having to replace a roof for nickel and dime hail actually, I say nickel and dime if we can eliminate having to replace a roof for up to two-inch hail and if we can eliminate all of the water damage and all of the things that happens in an EF1 or EF2 tornado, when your roof structure not the framing, not the decking, but your roof shingle, your covering comes off. If we can keep all the water out of the structure not the framing, not the decking, but your roof shingle, your covering comes off. If we can keep all the water out of the structure, we've reduced that insured loss for the insurance company by over 70%. The roof is easy to replace. But once you get all the water inside, now you have to mitigate mold, you have to remediate, you have to move people out of their house because it's uninhabitable, you have to replace all their contents. They have additional living expense. See how the claim just ticks up and up and up and up. So if we can keep the roof on, if we can build resilient, if we can build fortified roofing, then we can prevent a whole lot of the losses that are taking place.
Speaker 2:I've got shingle technology in the CertainTeed family of shingles that I started using in Oklahoma in 2018. So we're going seven, eight years now. We have never replaced a Northgate shingle roof, which is a CertainTeed, high-end product. We have never replaced a Northgate shingle roof for hail damage Never. We have never replaced a Northgate shingle roof for hail damage Never. We have just now replaced our very first Northgate shingle roof, and it's because of impact damage from tornado-blown debris in the storms down at 89th and sooner last November. We have never replaced one of those roofs for hail damage.
Speaker 2:Friends of mine in the roofing business say well, I'm not going to sell people that shingle, you know I'll never get to replace it.
Speaker 2:As their attitude and I go oh my gosh, isn't that the desired result? If I could never have to replace a roof for one of my clients, that would be perfect. That would be absolutely perfect, because I don't have to worry about where my business is going to come from. Our business is built on trust, as you said. Our business is built on that technical competency and the integrity that we built into our process. That is all about making sure the consumer is educated. They may not choose to do everything that we're suggesting to them that they do. They're at least going to know that it's an option. They're going to at least make an educated decision as to what they can and cannot afford to do in conjunction with the money that's coming from the insurance company their deductible and whatever else they might be able to put on top of it, to make that greatest investment for the protection of their home and their family. And that's what it's all about. That's how we approach business. That's why I never have to worry about where my customers are going to come from.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, scott, I think it's clear to anybody listening that BBB Standards for Trust are really integrated into your business, and how awesome for all the good work that you're doing here. Tell me why that is so important, just to you as a business owner.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that the reason that I wanted to become an accredited business with BBB is I just wanted to have I really wanted to have more than the credential. I wanted to have a process that, if there ever you know nobody's perfect, you know nobody's perfect, and if there was something where things went awry, that I wanted to have a process that everyone understood up front and that we could rely to come to a fair conclusion for everybody involved. And that's really that was my motivation and it was the reason that I wanted to become an accredited member of Better Business Bureau.
Speaker 1:Wonderful Thank you. I also was poking around on your website. You have a lot of resources there. Wonderful Thank you. I also was poking around on your website. You have a lot of resources there. Can you tell us a little bit about what businesses or consumers who are listening today?
Speaker 2:can find on your website that might be helpful. Well, I think that they're going to find more. Right now we're in the process. This is a brand new website, so we're getting ready to add some more content to it about some of the specific things the IBHS fortified program and some of our certainty offerings. We're getting ready to launch our solar entry into the marketplace, which is another certainty product. So there's going to be more coming, but there are a lot of resources there.
Speaker 2:About vetting a roofing contractor you go about figuring out who the good guys are and who maybe the people you ought to ask to exit your universe are. That kind of thing. So there's information there. There's great information there about some of the technologies that are coming down the pike. There's information there about the CertainTeed Northgate and ClimateFlex modified SBS shingles. That's the workhorse. That's what we believe in. There's a lot of information there about systems, roofs, systems, roofs. Again, all one manufacturer's component parts put into a system exactly the way that manufacturer wants it installed. And yeah, I'm a certainty-only guy and that's what I believe in. That's what we do. But other manufacturers have their system and as long as you're using all the component parts and that the contractor actually is versed in installing it exactly per the manufacturer's instructions, then I have no issue with that. It's still better than what most people get.
Speaker 2:I had a roof the other day and it's a big roof. It's a $150,000 roof, okay. And when I was looking at the invoice from the roofing contractor who did the roof, you know, five or six years ago, he had one company's this and another manufacturer's that and he had five or six different manufacturers integrated into this quote unquote roof system that he sold this client. That's not a roof system. That's a bunch of component parts that aren't even necessarily designed to go together and will not perform the way they would have had it been a system from that one manufacturer. People don't often get what it is. They think they've been sold. This gentleman thought he had bought a systems roof. Well, he did buy a systems roof, or he did pay for a systems roof, but he didn't know he wasn't getting a systems roof when it was being installed.
Speaker 2:We have people all the time who say, well, I bought an impact-resistant shingle. Well, I'm sorry, I just got done inspecting your roof. I looked at the backside of your shingle and you don't have an impact. Well, I paid for one. Well, you didn't get one, so it is, it is and that's again that's the reason that people really need to do their homework.
Speaker 2:I tell everyone that will listen, particularly in the roofing space, generally about people knocking on your door, but particularly in the roofing space and particularly after a big storm, there are things that you absolutely have to do, and the first thing you do when somebody knocks on your door is you ask them for their Construction Industries Board registration card. Little, their construction industries board registration card. Little orange card, little orange card. And it has the company representative not necessarily the person that's standing in front of you, but it has the authorized representative on there. It has an expiration date on it and it tells you whether they have a commercial endorsement.
Speaker 2:Now most homeowners don't need to worry about that, but business owners certainly do. Now they're showing you that card. That's step number one for you to even continue having any conversation. But I'm going to give you a little caveat. After they leave, you need to go online to the CIB, oklahoma slash roofers and you need to verify click on the little link, verify that, that card that he just showed you that they are still in good standing with the state of Oklahoma. So just because he showed you a card doesn't mean that they're still in good standing. You need to go and validate that. The next thing you can do is, obviously, you can check the Better Business Bureau, see what information they have. If this person, if they don't have a business card with a physical address not a PO box a physical address somewhere within the proximity of your zip code, you probably ought to just ask them to go on someplace else. Okay, if you look out there and you see their truck, they've got an out-of-state license plate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be careful, yeah. So there's all these bells and whistles and things that are going off. I tell people all the time never take a certificate. Some people will ask someone for a certificate of insurance. They've kind of learned, you know never take a certificate of insurance from a contractor who's handing you a certificate of insurance. A certificate of insurance comes to you by email or in the mail from the insurance company or from the broker or from the insurance agent, never something that that person is handing you, because that may have been a valid certificate on the day that it was issued and the next day they were canceled for non-payment of their premiums and you think they have insurance and they don't. That's a huge risk for homeowners. The biggest risk that you have with a project going on on your property is someone getting hurt on your property and that contractor not having valid workers' compensation insurance, not having subcontractor agreements with his subcontractors and them in turn having valid workers' compensation.
Speaker 1:We certainly don't want that. These are great tips, especially as we head into storm season Check with manufacturers.
Speaker 2:Ask them do they have any manufacturer's credentials? And if they tell you what credentials they have, it's real easy. You go to the manufacturer's websites and it says find a professional. You put their name in there. If they don't populate, they do not have that credential. I have people all the time that claim that they have credentials that they do not have.
Speaker 1:Thanks for those tips. You bet you bet, thanks for joining us today. I think below in our description box, our show notes, we will have all of the resources linked. I did want to say one more thing. I just love the title of your blog McBlog, that is so cute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are a lot of great resources on anybody listening. Make sure to go check it out. You bet, you bet Absolutely. And you know my solutions team my title is Chief Solutions Officer, my team are solution specialists and they exist to solve problems for the consuming marketplace. So that's why we're here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being here. You bet For all of those who are still listening and or watching. Thank you for listening. Be sure to connect with McRoof. I'll have a website. Social media handles. Absolutely, absolutely, give me a follow, a like and a share. We'll see you in the next episode, friends.