How Texas Roofing Restoration Contractors Can Protect Their Payment
The Cromeens Law Firm
October 1, 2026
Quick answer: Texas roofers lose payment on storm jobs when the insurance check goes to the homeowner and the homeowner keeps it. The tools most roofers assume will protect them, cancellation fees and liens, often fail on these jobs. Worse, two habits the roofing industry treats as normal, offering to waive the deductible and negotiating the claim for the homeowner, are illegal in Texas and can turn a payment problem into criminal charges. What protects your payment is paying and documenting the deductible early, keeping a clean line between construction talk and claim talk, and papering the job so a lien can survive.
Roofing restoration work operates under a unique set of financial pressures that most residential contractors never anticipate when they start their business. Unlike a standard remodeling project, restoration jobs depend on a third party, the insurance company, to approve and fund the work. This creates a gap between when a homeowner agrees to a project and when a contractor gets paid. That gap is where many roofing restoration businesses lose thousands of dollars every year.
In Texas, the risk is bigger than a slow payment. A roofer who handles the insurance claim the way the industry often does can lose the payment and face criminal charges on top of it.
This guide covers where the money goes, which common protections fail, which common habits are against the law, and the steps that keep you paid.
In a typical roofing restoration scenario, a contractor inspects storm or wind damage, prepares an estimate, and submits that estimate to the homeowner. The homeowner files the claim, and the insurance adjuster reviews the damage and issues an approved scope of work, often at a dollar amount that differs from the contractor’s estimate.
Once the claim is approved, the homeowner and contractor sign a contract based on the insurance company’s approved scope. By then, the contractor has already invested time inspecting, documenting, and preparing the estimate before replacing a single shingle.
Here’s where the risk begins. Once a homeowner has an approved insurance estimate in hand, some shop around for a cheaper contractor and use the approved scope to keep what is left over. The first contractor did the inspection and the estimate that got the scope approved, then loses the job to someone who did none of that work.
This is a recurring pattern in the restoration industry, and it hits contractors who specialize in insurance work harder than those doing cash-pay remodeling.
A cancellation fee can help, but in Texas it works only within narrow limits, and the version most roofers use will not hold up. Two rules control it.
First, most storm-restoration contracts are signed at the homeowner’s door after a storm, which makes them home-solicitation sales under Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 601. That law gives the homeowner three business days to cancel, and during those three days the contractor is entitled to no payment, even for work already done.
A cancellation fee cannot touch that window. The contract must also give the homeowner written notice of this three-day right, and if it does not, the cancellation period may never close.
Second, after the three-day window, a cancellation fee is enforceable in Texas only if it is a reasonable estimate of your real costs, not a penalty. A flat percentage of the contract price, the 10% or 20% many roofers write in, is the version courts are most likely to strike down, because a roofer’s real cost after an early cancellation (the inspection, the estimate, a restocking charge on special-ordered material) is usually a figure you can calculate. So tie the fee to documented costs, not a percentage of the claim.
One more line you cannot cross. Never describe the fee as payment for handling, filing, or getting the insurance claim approved.
A fee framed that way is evidence you were charging to work the claim, which is illegal in Texas for a contractor, as covered in the section below. Describe the fee in construction terms only: the cost of the inspection, the estimate, and the materials you committed to the job.
Whatever fee you use, it has to be disclosed in writing and signed before any work begins, never added after a dispute starts.
Even when a homeowner doesn’t switch contractors, payment problems can still arise. In most residential insurance claims, the insurance company issues payment directly to the homeowner (or jointly to the homeowner and mortgage lender), not to the contractor. Your agreement is with the homeowner, not the insurer, so the insurance company has no obligation to pay you directly, no matter how much work you completed.
In Texas, you cannot get around this by having the homeowner assign you their insurance claim. Texas courts enforce the anti-assignment clauses in most policies, even after the loss, so an assignment of the claim generally will not force the insurer to pay you. That is a common suggestion in the roofing industry, and in Texas it does not work.
Once the check is in the homeowner’s hands, nothing forces them to pass those funds to you on time, or at all. Some homeowners delay. Others spend the money on other things. In the worst cases, a homeowner disputes finished work to avoid paying the full amount, even after the insurer already funded it. The money that was meant for your roof is gone, and you are now chasing a person instead of a payment. The rest of this guide is about keeping that from happening, and about the legal lines you cannot cross while you try.
A mechanic’s lien gives a contractor a legal claim against the property when the work goes unpaid, and it clouds the title so the owner cannot cleanly sell or refinance until the debt is resolved. On a Texas roofing job, though, a lien is far weaker than most roofers think, and the reason is the homestead.
Most homes you reroof are the owner’s homestead, and Texas protects a homestead with rules that a storm contract almost never meets. To support a lien on a homestead repair, the Texas Constitution and Texas Property Code Section 53.254 require all of the following: the contract must be signed by both spouses, it must be signed at the office of a title company, an attorney, or a lender, it must be filed with the county clerk before any work begins, and it must give the owner three days to cancel without penalty. A contract signed on the porch or at the kitchen table after a hailstorm fails every one of those tests.
Filing a lien anyway is worse than not filing. A homestead lien that skips these steps can be removed on a summary motion, and filing a lien you are not entitled to can expose you to a fraudulent-lien claim under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 12, which carries its own penalties. So a lien is not a safety net you can reach for after the job goes bad. It only exists if you built it into the signing from the start.
Where liens do work: on non-homestead property, such as a rental or an investment property, the homestead rules do not apply, and a roofing contractor can file like any other.
On a homestead job, the lien holds if the contract is prepared correctly, with both spouses signing at a title company, attorney, or lender before work begins, and the contract is filed with the county. The residential filing deadline is the 15th day of the third month after you complete the work.
The full mechanics of filing a Texas lien are covered in The Cromeens Law Firm’s Texas lien guide.
In Texas, the homeowner must pay the insurance deductible. A roofer who offers to cover that deductible is committing a crime. This is the single most common way roofers get into legal trouble on storm jobs, because “we’ll cover your deductible” has been a standard sales pitch in the industry for years. In Texas, it is illegal.
Two statutes set the rule. Texas Insurance Code Chapter 707 requires the insured homeowner to pay any deductible on a property insurance claim. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 27.02 makes it an offense for a contractor who expects to be paid from insurance proceeds to advertise or promise to pay, waive, rebate, or absorb that deductible, or to help the homeowner avoid paying it. The offense is a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in county jail and a fine of up to $2,000.
The advertising itself is the crime. You do not have to waive a deductible to break the law. Under Section 27.02, promising or advertising the waiver is a separate offense, so a yard sign, a flyer, or a website line that says “we pay your deductible” is enough.
The statute also reaches the disguised versions: a “rebate,” a “credit,” a fake discount, or an inflated line item that quietly cancels out the deductible. If the effect is that the homeowner does not pay their deductible, it violates the law.
There is one more requirement most roofers miss. If your contract is expected to be paid partly or fully from an insurance claim and the price is $1,000 or more, Section 27.02 requires the contract to carry a specific deductible notice in at least 12-point bold type, stating that the homeowner must pay the deductible and that helping them avoid it is illegal. A contract without that notice is a red flag, and adding it is a simple fix.
If you have been running “no deductible” or “we cover your deductible” promotions, stop and have a Texas construction attorney review your contracts and your advertising before the next storm season.
In Texas, you cannot act as the homeowner’s insurance adjuster on a job you are contracting. That means you cannot negotiate the claim, argue what it is worth, or tell the insurer you represent the homeowner. Texas Insurance Code Section 4102.163 makes it illegal for a contractor to act as a public adjuster, or to advertise that they will, on any property they are providing or may provide roofing work for. In 2024, the Texas Supreme Court upheld this rule in a decision known as Stonewater Roofing, so it is settled law, not a gray area.
You cannot get around it. The statute says it does not matter whether you hold an adjuster license or have the homeowner sign a power of attorney. A roofer simply cannot be both the contractor and the claim adjuster on the same job. Violating it carries administrative, civil, and criminal penalties.
The line is simpler than it sounds, and it comes down to what you talk about. You can speak about the construction all day: what is damaged, what the repair requires, what your scope and estimate cost. You cannot speak about the coverage or the settlement: what the policy owes, what the claim is worth, or what the homeowner should accept. Talk about the roof, never about the claim. When the adjuster is on site, explain the damage and the cost to fix it, and let the homeowner and the carrier settle the coverage between themselves.
This connects to the cancellation fee point from earlier. A fee you describe as payment for handling or approving the claim is evidence you were charging to adjust it, which is the exact conduct this law prohibits. Keep your contract, invoices, and website in construction language. The moment your paperwork says you handle claims, negotiate with adjusters, or get claims approved, you have put the violation in writing.
If your marketing claims you handle homeowners insurance claims, or your team negotiates settlements with adjusters, have a Texas construction attorney review it before it becomes evidence against you.
Payment risk in roofing restoration work is almost guaranteed. When the insurance check goes to the homeowner, the tools you assumed would protect you have real limits, and two habits the industry treats as normal can land you in criminal trouble. All of it is manageable, but only if you set it up before the work begins.
The steps that hold up in Texas: get the deductible paid and documented early, because the insurer can hold back the depreciation that funds your final check until you prove it. Keep a clean line between construction talk and claim talk, so you never cross into adjusting. Write a cancellation fee tied to your real costs, not a percentage of the claim. And paper the job so a lien can survive, or know going in that it cannot. Do these before the next storm, not after the next dispute.
If you have open invoices, contracts that do not protect you, or a signing process that will not support a lien, that is the time to fix it.
The Cromeens Law Firm builds contracts that protect Texas roofers before the job starts and steps in when a homeowner keeps the money.
Schedule a free consultation. The storm is the opportunity. The paperwork helps you keep what you earn.
No. Under Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 27.02, it is illegal for a roofer who expects to be paid from an insurance claim to waive, rebate, or absorb the homeowner’s deductible, or even to advertise that they will. The homeowner must pay the deductible, and a violation is a Class B misdemeanor. Any “we cover your deductible” offer is a warning sign, not a deal.
No. Texas Insurance Code Section 4102.163 bars a contractor from acting as an insurance adjuster on a property they are doing roofing work on, and the Texas Supreme Court upheld that rule in 2024. A roofer can inspect the damage, document it, and give you an estimate. A roofer cannot negotiate the claim, argue its value, or tell the insurer they represent you. That is a public adjuster’s job, and a licensed one who is not also your contractor.
Sometimes, depending on the property. On a rental or other non-homestead property, a roofer can file a Texas mechanic’s lien like any other contractor. On a homestead, the lien only works if the contract was signed by both spouses at a title company, attorney, or lender’s office and filed with the county before work began, which most storm contracts are not. You can read how Texas liens work in The Cromeens Law Firm’s Texas lien guide.
It depends on when they cancel and how they signed the contract. If the contract was signed at the home, Texas gives the homeowner three business days to cancel without owing the contractor any payment. After that window, a contractor can charge a cancellation fee only if it reflects real costs, not a flat percentage of the claim. A fee written as a percentage is often unenforceable.
Yes. Under Texas Insurance Code Section 707.004, an insurer can hold back the recoverable depreciation, often the final and largest payment, until the homeowner proves the deductible was paid. So an unpaid deductible does not just violate the law, it can freeze the money that pays the roofer. Collecting and documenting the deductible early keeps the payment moving.
Karalynn Cromeens is the Owner and Managing Partner of The Cromeens Law Firm, PLLC, with over 17 years of experience in construction, real estate, and business law. A published author and passionate advocate for contractors, she has dedicated her career to protecting the businesses her clients have built. Karalynn is on a mission to educate subcontractors on their legal rights, which inspired her books Quit Getting Screwed and Quit Getting Stiffed, as well as her podcast and The Subcontractor Institute.
