Ridge tiles and insurance
Will insurance pay for ridge tiles blown off in a storm?
The short answer
It can, if your policy covers storm damage and the insurer accepts that a storm, not slow decay, brought the tiles down. Ring the insurer before arranging repairs, keep people clear of falling pieces, take pictures from the ground and hold on to every receipt. Whether money follows depends on the policy wording and the insurer's view of the cause, so nobody, a roofer included, can say in advance that a payout will come.
How an insurer separates a gale from a tired ridge, the sensible order of action, and where to turn when the answer is no.
A gale, or a ridge already on its way out
Insurers separate a sudden event from gradual decline. A ridge tile flung to the ground in a named storm looks like damage from an event. A ridge whose bed has crumbled over the years, and which lost a tile in ordinary weather, looks like wear and tear, which standard policies leave out. Which? offers an example close to home: rain that gets in through a roof nobody has looked after can be treated as wear and tear.
The difficulty is that storms find tired ridges first. A gale picks off the loose tile, and the insurer then has to decide what really caused the loss. That is why the condition of the ridge before the weather matters, and why a record of upkeep carries weight. If you have pictures of the roofline from before the storm, even a family snap with the house in the background, keep them beside the ones taken afterwards.
The order of action after tiles come down
Safety comes ahead of paperwork. If tiles have landed in the garden or on the drive, keep people and cars away from that spot and stay off the roof and ladders. Then follow the plain advice from Which? and the Institution of Structural Engineers: get in touch with the insurer at the earliest opportunity, photograph the affected areas from somewhere safe, and report any urgent repair you arrange, such as a temporary cover to hold the rain off.
Pictures are the evidence of what happened, so take them wide and close. Keep receipts for emergency work, which form part of a claim. Hold on to broken pieces unless they pose a danger to health; a snapped ridge tile lying on the lawn tells the insurer more than a skip does. Our answer on a temporary repair before the insurer agrees covers the middle step in more detail.
What a roofer's survey can add to the file
When we survey a ridge we photograph the roof itself and put a single total figure in the written quote. Both can be useful to send to your insurer alongside your own pictures, because they show the state of the bed, the fixings and the tiles that moved. The claim itself is a matter between you and your insurer, and the policy wording decides what it covers.
What a survey can say honestly is what the roof looks like and what the smallest sound repair would be. It cannot say how the insurer will read the cause. Clean breaks and fresh bedding scattered below suit a storm account. Old mortar gone to powder along the whole run invites a conversation about wear and tear. Better that you hear this at the outset than build hopes you cannot rely on, and better that you know your options before anyone puts a ladder up.
Excess, small jobs and whether to claim at all
A handful of replaced ridge tiles can be a small job. Checkatrade's roof repair guide, updated in June 2026, puts ridge tile repairs at £50 to £70 a metre before VAT, and a policy excess can swallow much of a modest bill. Read your schedule for the excess, for any separate storm excess and for what the insurer expects to see before it agrees repairs.
Whether to claim is for you to decide, and it is sensible to ask the insurer how an enquiry is logged before you make one. Where the repair is small and the excess is of similar size, many people simply pay. Where a gale has stripped a long run of the ridge or damaged the slope below, a claim is more likely to be worth making. In both cases, get the written quote first so you are deciding on a real number rather than a guess.
If the insurer turns the claim down
A no is not necessarily final. Request the insurer's reasons in writing and set them against your photographs and our survey. Still unhappy? Put a formal complaint to the insurer, and if you reach deadlock the Financial Ombudsman Service will look at it, free of charge.
It helps to go in with realistic expectations. Which? quotes the regulator's own figures: just 32 per cent of storm-related claims made in 2024 ended in a payout. That tells you nothing about your own claim either way, but it is a reason not to delay a repair on the assumption that money is on the way. A ridge left loose can let rain in and grow a minor job into a major one, so the sensible course is to get it secured, then argue the cost. See also our guide to ridge tiles in high wind and the ridge tile repairs page.
Related questions
Ridge claim questions
Do I have to leave loose ridge tiles untouched until the insurer replies?
No. Tell the insurer first, then ask what they will accept. A measure to stop rain getting in is usually reasonable, but keep photographs and receipts, and hold off on a full rebuild of the ridge until you know their position. Where rain is already entering, making the roof safe comes ahead of everything else.
Is it worth keeping the broken ridge tiles?
Yes, if you can do so safely. They show how the tile failed, whether at a clean break or through old bedding, and the insurer may want to see them. Photograph them where they fell, then move them somewhere out of the way.