Many homeowners don’t realize that a roofing manufacturer’s warranty often only covers the material, not labor, or that a typical home insurance claim often may cover damages from a roof leak but will NOT cover the cost to replace a failed roof. This list highlights the warranties that you are most likely to encounter. Even for those warranty types not listed, the ones explained below will allow you to look at any type of warranty with a more critical eye, as many warranties with different names still contain much of the same verbiage. At Roofing Standards of America, our certified contractors offer the best of both: a Workmanship (Labor) warranty that INCLUDES the materials required to replace the roof when workmanship is the cause of failure.
- LABOR-ONLY – A warranty where the terms and coverage are restricted to the labor required to address the defect. There is no coverage for product failures. Any additional materials, supplies, and/or accessories needed to address the defect are not provided for under the warranty. These are usually offered by the installer and generally have shorter terms than Material-Only or Labor and Material warranties.
- MATERIAL-ONLY – A warranty where the terms and coverage are restricted to the materials required to address the defect. There is no coverage for installation mistakes. The labor needed to address the defect is not provided for under the warranty. These are usually offered by the manufacturer and generally have longer terms than Labor-Only warranties.
- LABOR AND MATERIAL – A warranty that provides coverage for both the labor and materials needed to address the defect. There may or may not be workmanship coverage for this type of warranty. These are usually offered by the manufacturer and often have many exclusions. The terms are often comparable to those of Material-Only warranties.
- NDL – Whereas some warranties are prorated or simply limited to the original cost of installation, an NDL warranty does not have this monetary limitation. NDL stands for No-Dollar-Limit, meaning that there is no cost limitation to a covered warranty claim. Most NDL warranties cover both labor and material defects. Some also cover workmanship. But it is possible to have an NDL Material-Only warranty, too. So be sure to check the fine print.
- PRO-RATED – This type of warranty can come in many different “flavors.” But what they all have in common is that the warranty does not cover 100% of the monetary costs to fix defects in the roof throughout the entire warranty term. Some pro-rated warranties are hybrids that include NDL coverage for a portion of the warranty term and then switch to pro-rated coverage throughout the remaining term. For example, a 20-year pro-rated warranty may offer 100% NDL coverage for the first 10 years. However, at year 11, the coverage may drop to 80%; in year 12 to 60%; in year 13 to only 40%, and so on. Some pro-rated warranties are pro-rated from year one. This means that even if you were given a 40-year warranty, at year 5 you will have already lost significant coverage. Generally speaking, a shorter term NDL warranty is almost always better than a longer term pro-rated warranty. Many long-term warranties are pro-rated and easily fool people into thinking they are getting better coverage than they actually are.
- RESIDENTIAL-ONLY – These are warranties that are only written for places of residences and do not cover labor. Often, Residential warranties are tantamount to a Material-Only warranty.
- SPECIALTY – These types of warranties are usually added as riders to another warranty as specified above. They cover so-called “Acts of God,” like hail or high-wind. Coverage is usually very specific with extensive exclusions. They are often at an additional cost. Some manufacturers provide hail or high-wind warranties only to satisfy an architect’s specification or simply to offer what their competition does. But just because you get a ‘hail warranty,’ for example, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting significant hail protection coverage.