Is a garage roof covered by home insurance?

Buildings insurance exists to cover the structure of your home. Garages, sheds and outbuildings are usually dealt with in the policy wording, either as part of the main buildings cover or as a named extension, and each insurer defines them in its own way. An attached garage sits under the same roofline as the house and will more readily count as part of the house. A detached one, or one at the end of a shared drive, may be listed separately, and some policies limit what they pay for outbuildings or ask you to declare them.

What your policy says is outside what we can tell you, since we have not seen it. The only reliable sources are your policy booklet, the schedule that lists what you have declared, and a written answer from your insurer. If you rent, the landlord's buildings policy is the relevant one, and your contents cover is unlikely to reach the structure at all.

The usual divide runs between sudden damage and slow decline. A policy typically names the events it covers, such as storm, fire, flood, impact from a fallen tree or malicious damage. A roof torn open in a gale, or a branch through the sheeting, fits that pattern. A felt roof that has gone brittle and begun to leak after fifteen years does not, because ageing, wear and poor maintenance are commonly excluded.

That is why how old the roof is, and how well it has been kept, matter once a claim is made. An assessor may want to know when the roof was last replaced and whether it was kept in repair. The photographs from a survey, with dates, can help show what state the roof was in before the event. Our answer on leaking garage roofs explains the common causes, and gives an idea of which ones read as wear.

If a storm has damaged the roof, the first job is stopping further harm. A roof that is letting water in gets stopped and made safe before anything else. Tarping a hole or taking down loose sheets limits the damage, and policies commonly expect sensible steps to protect the property. Keep the receipts and photograph the damage before anything is moved.

Call your insurer before ordering a full replacement, because they may want to see the damage, appoint their own assessor or specify how the claim is settled. Throwing the old roof away before they have seen it can cause problems. Ask what they will pay for, whether there is an excess, and whether they expect you to use a contractor of their choosing.

Owners often hope that a failing garage roof can be swapped for a new one through the policy. Where the cause is ordinary ageing, that hope usually meets an exclusion, and the replacement is a maintenance cost like repainting the windows. Where the cause is a named event, the insurer may pay to put right the damage, which is not always the same as paying for a whole new roof. A repair to the damaged area, or a payment based on the roof's condition before the event, are both possible outcomes, depending on the wording.

It helps to separate the two in your own mind before you ring. If you can name the day the damage happened, say so and send photographs. If the roof has been leaking for years and a storm made it worse, expect questions. Our answer on garage roof lifespans gives the typical ages at which coverings wear out, which is the kind of evidence an assessor may weigh.

If your garage has a cement sheet roof that might contain asbestos, tell your adviser or insurer what you know before work begins, because it can change how a claim is handled and how the waste is dealt with. A sound roof left alone is one situation. A roof broken by a storm is another, because broken asbestos cement can fall into the more regulated category of work. See our answer on a cracked asbestos garage roof sheet for how that works.

We cannot say whether a given insurer will pay extra for specialist removal or disposal; that is down to the policy. Where the roof is intact and being replaced as a planned job, expect the cost to fall to you rather than a claim.

Before you commission work after damage, ask your insurer these things in writing:

• Is the garage covered, attached or detached, and under which section?
• Which causes of damage are named, and which are excluded?
• Is there an excess, and is any limit placed on outbuildings?
• Do you need to get quotes, or use an approved repairer?

If a claim goes ahead, we send a written quote after the survey, built on photographs of your own roof, so an assessor can follow it. Time planning is covered in how long a garage roof replacement takes, and the wider job is on our garage roof replacement page. Finished work is backed by a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing.