The short answer
It depends on your policy and on the cause. Home insurance commonly responds to sudden damage, such as slates lifted in a named storm, and commonly excludes gradual wear, such as nails that have corroded over decades. A dated photograph and a roofer's written report on the cause give an insurer something to assess. Check the wording of your cover, and speak to your insurer before commissioning repairs.
One event or slow wear
Policies differ, and nothing here is advice about yours; the wording of your own schedule and booklet governs. The pattern most buildings policies follow is to cover sudden, accidental damage and certain named perils such as storm, while excluding wear and tear, gradual deterioration and poor maintenance.
For slate, that line falls between two kinds of failure. A gale that strips a patch of slates which were sound the day before is an event. Slates that have been loosening for years because the iron nails behind them have corroded is slow decay, which is what our answer on nail fatigue describes. In real life the two overlap, since a storm often finishes off a roof whose fixings were already weak, and that is where claims become contested.
What insurers tend to look for
An insurer, often through a loss adjuster, asks what caused the damage and when. The evidence that helps most includes the following:
- The date of the storm or incident, and anything from the weather record around it
- Whether the slates were in place and the roof sound beforehand
- Whether the damaged area is isolated, as storm damage tends to be, or spread across the slope, as ageing is
- Whether the roof was maintained, such as clear gutters and moss managed
This is why neglected roofs make claims harder. Moss, for example, can hold water against slates and fixings, and our moss answer covers it. We cannot predict what any insurer will decide, and the claim stays between you and them. What we can do is describe what we see on the roof, in writing, with pictures.
Photos and a roofer's report that help
Before anything is moved, take pictures of the damage from the garden and, if it is safe, from an upstairs window. Take wide shots that show the whole slope and close ones of the gap. Keep any fallen slates, because their breaks show whether they cracked or simply slid. Note the date, and anything you heard or saw, while memory is fresh. Neighbours' roofs that lost slates on the same night are worth mentioning, since that points to a single event.
A roofer's written report adds the view from the roof and the loft. Ours records the slates, the nails or hooks where visible, the battens and the pattern of damage, with photographs, and says plainly what looks sudden and what looks gradual. MyBuilder's 2026 inspection guide puts a typical roof survey at £150 to £500. Our report describes the roof as it is, which sometimes supports a claim and sometimes does not. It will not overstate the case, because an insurer's own assessor will read it, and an exaggerated report does nobody any good.
Making safe before the insurer replies
If water is coming in, act to stop the damage getting worse. A temporary repair is normally expected, and many policies expect you to prevent more damage while you wait. When water is entering the house, we start by stopping it, and the lasting repair is arranged afterwards. Ask your insurer whether they want to see the damage before permanent work starts, and keep receipts for emergency work. An insurer will usually tell you on the phone what they need, and a short note of who you spoke to and when avoids arguments later.
MyBuilder's 2026 guide puts storm-damage fixes at £500 to £1,500 nationally, which is worth setting against your policy excess. Where the repair is small, you may decide a claim is not worth the excess and the effect on future premiums, a point the single slate cost answer helps with. Weather damage and its safe repair are covered in our guide to slate roofs in storms.
Hold on to everything until the insurer has had the chance to look at it. Broken slate, a bent ridge piece or a split lead flashing can all be evidence, and a skip load of rubble cannot be examined later. Ask the roofer to bag fragments and photograph them where they fell.
If the claim is refused, or the cause is wear
If your insurer decides the cause is age, the cost falls to you, and the repair is the same one you would have done anyway. That can feel unfair after a storm, but the decision usually turns on evidence, so a clear pre-storm photograph or an earlier survey report can matter a great deal. It is worth keeping reports from past inspections with your home papers. The same goes for invoices from earlier roof repairs, which show that the roof was looked after and when it was last worked on, and for any survey done when you bought the house. The sensible next step is to deal with the cause and not only the visible gap: a roof whose nails are spent will keep losing slates. If you disagree with a decision, your insurer has a complaints process, and it is worth reading before you assume the answer is final.
Where the roof sits below the pitch its slate size allows, or was laid badly in the first place, that is a further matter, and policies often treat faulty workmanship differently from storm damage; the minimum figures are in our answer on slate minimum pitch. Whatever the outcome, our quote covers the work in writing, and the repair carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee in writing. Start from slate roofing, or ring 01453 933613.