Slipped tiles and insurance
Will home insurance pay for slipped or missing tiles?
The short answer
Sometimes, but not always. Insurers tend to treat storm damage differently from wear and tear, and a policy may not pay when water gets in through a roof that has been neglected. Read your own policy wording, contact the insurer early, and keep photos and receipts. The insurer alone decides whether a claim is accepted, and nobody else can guarantee the outcome. A roofer who promises a payout is promising something that is not theirs to give.
The first steps once tiles have come off, how insurers tend to judge the cause, and where to go if you disagree with the answer.
Ring the insurer before you book the work
Which? advises contacting your insurer promptly after storm damage, and points out that many insurers run emergency helplines around the clock. Make that call before you arrange permanent work. The insurer may want its own assessor to visit, may prefer particular contractors, and may set out what it will pay for, and an early call heads off arguments later. Some policies also carry an excess, so ask what you would pay yourself before the insurer contributes anything.
Have the policy number to hand and jot down what you saw, with the date and time. If tiles are lying in the garden, leave them where they fell until you have taken pictures, unless they are a danger to people. Which? also advises against throwing out damaged items unless they are hazardous, and sound tiles that fell are worth keeping for the same reason. Our answer on whether to call a roofer or your insurer first sets out the order of events in more detail.
Make it safe, then document it
The Institution of Structural Engineers suggests securing the property first, then informing your insurer of the damage, of any urgent steps already taken, such as a stopgap cover over the hole, and of what the affected areas look like in photographs. It adds that pictures carry real weight with an insurer, because they record the damage before anything is moved.
Take them from the ground, never from the roof or from a ladder in the wind. Start with the whole house, move to the damaged area, then take close-ups of any tiles on the ground. Write down the dates as you go: when the damage happened, when you rang, and who you spoke to. When we are called to a leak, we record the slope as we find it and again after the stopgap work, and send those pictures with the written price. Those pictures are yours to pass to the insurer. Our page on slipped roof tiles explains what we look for on the slope.
Storm damage or wear and tear
This is where most disputes arise. Which? lists rain finding its way through a neglected roof as the sort of loss that may be put down to wear and tear and declined. Tiles lifted by a gale from an otherwise sound roof read very differently from tiles that slipped because the nails gave out years ago.
The same Which? feature cites Financial Conduct Authority data: just 32% of storm claims made in 2024 resulted in a payout. That is a national figure across every kind of storm claim, not one for roofs alone or for this area, so read it as a reason to record the cause carefully rather than as a forecast. If the survey finds failed fixings, rotten battens or torn felt, say so plainly in your evidence, since the insurer will find out anyway. Our guide to home insurance and roof repair goes further into the same ground.
Temporary repairs and receipts
If you end up paying for emergency work yourself, Which? says to inform the insurer and hold every receipt, since that spend becomes part of the claim. A temporary repair that stops rain coming in is usually sensible, and insurers generally want to see that you stopped things getting worse. Keep the invoice for the visit and ask for it to say what was done and where on the roof, in plain words that someone at the insurer can follow without seeing the slope.
Wait for the insurer's word on permanent work, unless the roof is wide open to the weather. Re-fixing a few tiles is a small job, but a larger repair after a storm may need agreement first. The claim itself stays between you and the insurer. What we supply is the roofer's survey, the photographs and our written price, which you can pass on.
If the insurer says no
You are entitled to complain. Which? says to complain to the insurer at the outset, and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you remain dissatisfied, and that service costs nothing. Hold on to every letter, email and picture, and ask for the reason for refusal in writing, so that you can see which clause of the policy is being relied on.
A second opinion on the roof from an independent roofer can help if the insurer blames age and you believe a storm did the damage, though no result can be promised. If the claim fails, the sensible next step is a repair matched to the fault, so that you pay for no more than the roof needs. Our cracked roof tile answer covers one common small repair, and the pitched roofing hub covers everything else we do on pitched roofs.
Related questions
Insurance and tile questions
Should I pay for tile repairs before the insurer visits?
Only for the work that makes the roof secure and keeps the rain out. Tell the insurer, take photos and keep receipts, as Which? advises. Hold off on permanent repairs until the insurer has said how it wants to proceed.
Does a policy cover tiles lost in a gale from an old roof?
It depends on the policy wording and on the cause the insurer finds. Age and poor upkeep can count as wear and tear. Read the policy and request the insurer's reasons in writing.