The Carrier Already Flew the Roof. Since January, Texas Nonrenewal Letters Have to Say Why.

A San Antonio homeowner got a nonrenewal notice from Nationwide rating the roof "poor." The grade came from an aerial image run through CAPE Analytics, an AI company that scores roofs from the sky. The homeowner said the roof was five or six years old. In Galveston, State Farm told a homeowner in 2023 to replace the roof or lose coverage. A roofer went up and found it needed cleaning. In Austin, Travelers tied a nonrenewal to tree limbs it saw hanging over the roof in a photo.

Those are three of at least a dozen complaints Texas homeowners have filed with the Texas Department of Insurance since 2023 over aerial-photo underwriting, according to a KUT investigation published in May 2025. Between 2020 and 2023 the rate at which Texas insurers declined to renew home policies nearly doubled.

Nobody knocked on those doors. A plane did the inspection, a model did the grading, and a letter did the talking. That is the new front end of the roofing market between storms, and most roofers are not working it.

How a carrier inspects a roof now

Imagery vendors fly fixed-wing aircraft over every major metro, typically once or twice a year, at a resolution that shows individual shingle tabs. Satellite fills the gaps. A classifier then grades each roof: streaking and algae, missing or lifted tabs, patch repairs in a different color, tarps, debris, ponding on a flat section, rust on metal, limbs over the ridge. The output is a condition score and sometimes a roof-age estimate, delivered to the carrier before renewal.

The carrier never sees a shingle. It sees pixels and a score. That is efficient for the carrier and, as the San Antonio and Galveston cases show, sometimes wrong. The same gap is where a roofer earns a living.

What changed in the rules

Texas. House Bill 2067 took effect January 1, 2026. For any policy issued or renewed from that date, the insurer has to state the reason for a declination, cancellation or nonrenewal in the notice itself, and report those reasons to the Texas Department of Insurance every quarter. TDI's reporting rules ask carriers to flag whether aerial imagery drove the decision. Texas already required the nonrenewal notice at least 30 days before the policy expires. So a Texas homeowner now gets a letter, 30 days out, that says in plain terms "roof condition" or "roof age."

Colorado. The Division of Insurance issued Bulletin B-5.57 on March 16, 2026. It is guidance, not a statute, but it tells every admitted property carrier that aerial imagery is not definitive on its own, that imagery should be reasonably current, that a picture needing heavy enlargement or inference should be checked by a physical inspection, and that a homeowner hit with an adverse decision should get a meaningful chance to dispute the image, correct errors and submit proof of repairs. Colorado's HB23-1174 already pushed homeowner nonrenewal notice to 60 days.

Read those two together from a roofer's chair. In both states the homeowner now receives a letter that names the roof, with a 30-to-60-day clock on it, and in Colorado an explicit right to answer the carrier with evidence. Evidence means a dated inspection with photos from someone who was on the roof. That is you.

The three homeowners behind the letter

The nonrenewal letter sorts into three leads, and only one of them is a replacement.

1. The flagged roof that is fine. The San Antonio case. Algae streaking on a six-year roof, a tarp left from a satellite dish install, limbs that need trimming. The job is a written inspection report, a cleaning or a 400-dollar repair, and a letter the homeowner forwards to the carrier. Small ticket. But you just saved someone's insurance, and that homeowner knows every neighbor with the same letter. The cosmetic damage post covers how to document a roof that looks worse from above than it is.

2. The flagged roof that is tired. A 2006 three-tab with lost granules and lifted tabs. The algorithm was right. This is a retail replacement with a hard deadline the homeowner did not choose, which is the same urgency the 12-month claim window gives a storm lead. No deductible fight, no supplement, none of the three-check timeline. The homeowner pays the whole number, so financing and a clear scope matter more than they do on a claim.

3. The roof that has not been flagged yet. A 17-year roof with visible staining and one patched valley. The plane flies again next spring. This homeowner has no letter and no urgency, but the roofer who shows up with a photo and a plain explanation of what the carrier's software will see is the one who gets the call when the letter arrives. Our insurability cliff post covers the carrier-age thresholds that put this roof on the list.

The math on one city

Illustrative numbers for a Front Range city the size of Thornton. Roof years come from county assessor and permit records, and the "visible wear" filter uses the same kind of imagery the carriers buy.

Thirty-eight thousand doors is six months of knocking for a six-person crew with nothing to say at most of them. Twenty-nine hundred is a month, and every one of those homeowners either has a letter, will have one by next renewal, or can be shown why.

Price it the way the work-backward-from-the-job post does. A Front Range retail replacement runs roughly 15,000 to 25,000 dollars. If one in twelve of the 2,900 turns into a replacement over a year and another one in twelve into a repair-and-report job at 500 to 1,500 dollars, that is about 240 roofs and 240 small jobs from a list that costs a fraction of blanket knocking. Your close rate is yours, not ours. Run your own numbers through the cost-per-job calculator.

The honest version of the pitch

This angle attracts hacks, so run it straight.

• Never tell a homeowner they are about to be dropped unless the letter exists or the age math says so. Say what carriers are doing, show the photo, let the roof argue.
• Report first, sell second. The deliverable is a dated inspection with photos of every slope, written so a carrier can read it. If the roof is fine, say so and bill the repair. The replacement you did not sell today is the referral you get in March.
• Know the clock. Texas, 30 days before expiry. Colorado, 60. A homeowner who calls you on day 20 needs the report in a week and the roof scheduled before the policy lapses, or needs help finding another carrier.
• Texas contract rules still apply. A retail job is not a claim, but if the homeowner later files on a storm, the deductible language in your storm contract still has to be right.

None of this is legal advice. Read HB 2067 and Bulletin B-5.57 yourself before you quote them on a porch.

How we handle it

The Insurance Timeout view in every RoofLeads Pro territory scores each home on roof age from county records, material, value and owner-occupancy, and ranks the roofs aging toward carrier thresholds with no storm required. It runs year-round next to the storm pipeline, which matters most from now through March, when Colorado has nothing falling and the Texas fall season is thin. Mark each home contacted, scheduled or sold and it sticks, so a crew can work the list over weeks.

Our territories cover one roofer per city at a flat price on the pricing page. If your city is still open, check the territory map. The carriers already have the list. The question is which roofer gets to the door before the letter does.