Can I get homeowners insurance in Florida with a 20-year-old roof?

Usually yes — but in our experience the answer depends almost entirely on what the roof is made of. As of August 2026, a 20-year-old tile, slate, concrete or metal roof is unremarkable to most of the Florida carriers we place. A 20-year-old asphalt shingle roof is the harder case: it is past the point where Florida law bars a roof-age decline outright, and what we generally see is that an inspection showing remaining useful life becomes part of the process.

The second thing worth knowing is a statutory right most homeowners are unaware of. Since July 1, 2022, under Fla. Stat. § 627.7011(5) an insurer that would require roof replacement as a condition of writing or renewing a homeowners policy must first allow an inspection at the homeowner’s expense — and if that inspection shows five or more years of useful life remaining, the statute provides that the insurer may not refuse solely because of the roof’s age.

This page is indicative only. It is not a quote, and it is not an eligibility decision. Only a carrier can confirm whether it will write your home and at what price.

What Florida law actually says about roof age

The controlling provision is Fla. Stat. § 627.7011(5). It was created by SB 2-D (chapter 2022-268, Laws of Florida), passed in the May 2022 special session and applying to homeowners’ policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2022.

A note on a common mix-up: this roof-age protection came from SB 2-D, not SB 4-D. SB 4-D (chapter 2022-269) is the building-safety bill passed the same week — it created the § 553.844(5) exception to the “25% rule,” which is about how much of a damaged roof must be brought up to current code, not about insurance eligibility. The two get conflated constantly, including by insurance and roofing websites.

Roof age	What § 627.7011(5) requires
Under 15 years	An insurer may not refuse to issue or refuse to renew a homeowner’s policy solely because of the age of the roof.
15 years or older	Before requiring roof replacement as a condition of issuing or renewing, the insurer must allow the homeowner to have a roof inspection performed by an authorized inspector at the homeowner’s expense.
15 years or older, inspection passes	If the inspection shows the roof has 5 years or more of useful life remaining, the insurer may not refuse to issue or renew solely because of roof age.

The statute makes no distinction by roof material. The 15-year line applies the same way to shingle, tile, and metal. In our experience, carrier underwriting guidelines are where material starts to matter — see below.

How the roof’s age is measured

§ 627.7011(5)(d) defines it precisely, and this catches people out:

a roof’s age shall be calculated using the last date on which 100 percent of the roof’s surface area was built or replaced in accordance with the building code in effect at that time

So a partial re-roof does not reset the clock. If you replaced the back slope in 2019 and the front is original from 2006, the roof is a 2006 roof. Citizens states the same rule in plainer terms in its 31 March 2023 Personal Lines bulletin: “In situations where the entire roof is not replaced at the same time, the roof age will be based on the oldest part of the roof.”

Who counts as an “authorized inspector”

§ 627.7011(5)(a) lists them, and adds one condition that matters more than the list: the inspector must be approved by the insurer. The categories are:

• a licensed home inspector (§ 468.8314)
• a certified building code inspector (§ 468.607)
• a general, building, or residential contractor (§ 489.111), or a roofing contractor
• a licensed professional engineer (§ 471.015)
• a licensed professional architect (§ 481.213)
• any other individual or entity the insurer recognises as qualified

Roofing contractors were added to that list by chapter 2024-182, Laws of Florida. That is a practical improvement — the trade most able to assess remaining roof life is now explicitly named — but the “approved by the insurer” qualifier is the reason we suggest confirming the inspector with the carrier before paying for the report rather than after.

Why 20 years is a different question for shingle than for tile

The statute is material-blind. Carrier and Citizens underwriting rules, in our experience, are not. The one set of thresholds that is published openly is Citizens’, and as published it splits cleanly along a soft/hard line. The table below reports what Citizens’ own documents stated on the dates given; Citizens can revise them at any time:

Roof covering	Citizens age threshold, as published, above which proof of full replacement or documented remaining useful life is required
Shingle and other soft coverings	more than 25 years
Tile, slate, clay, concrete or metal (hard) coverings	more than 50 years

Source: Citizens Property Insurance, Personal Lines Bulletin “Roof Rule Changes,” 31 March 2023, effective 1 May 2023 for new business and 1 September 2023 for renewals; restated in Citizens FAQ 2513, retrieved 22 August 2026.

Read against a 20-year-old roof, that produces two very different situations:

• A 20-year-old tile or metal roof sits 30 years inside the published Citizens threshold. On age alone we rarely see it raise a question. Condition, prior claims, and everything else about the house still apply.
• A 20-year-old shingle roof sits five years inside the published Citizens threshold, and five years past the statutory 15-year line. It falls in the window where the statute no longer bars a roof-age decline outright and the inspection route is what the law provides.

The shingle case is worth being straight about. Asphalt shingle in Florida’s climate is exposed to ultraviolet, granule loss, and repeated wind uplift, and condition rather than age is what an inspection assesses. We are not going to publish an age at which shingle typically fails inspection — we do not have data that would support a number, and the ones circulating elsewhere are not sourced either. What we can say is that on an older shingle roof, an inspection is usually part of the process rather than an exception to it, and that some carriers decline on roof age regardless of what an inspection reports.

What we cannot publish here: the specific roof-age thresholds used by individual private carriers. Those live in appointed-agent underwriting guides, they are not public, and they change without notice. Naming a number we cannot document would be worse than useless. Ask a licensed agent to check the current guideline for your specific carrier and covering.

The five limits nobody mentions

The 15-year protection is real, and it is also narrower than the way it usually gets described online. All five of these are on the face of the statute.

1. It protects against decline, not against price. § 627.7011(5) says an insurer may not refuse to issue or refuse to renew solely because of roof age. It says nothing about premium. A carrier writing a 20-year shingle roof can still rate it, can apply a separate roof deductible under § 627.701(10), and can offer actual cash value rather than replacement cost on the roof. Eligibility and affordability are different questions.

2. “Solely” is doing a lot of work. § 627.7011(6)(c) preserves the insurer’s ability to “reject or nonrenew any insured or applicant on the grounds that the structure does not meet underwriting criteria… or for other lawful reasons.” A decline based on roof condition — visible damage, deterioration, excessive patching, prior claims — is not a decline based on roof age, and the statute does not reach it.

3. The homeowner pays for the inspection. The statute says so explicitly: “at the homeowner’s expense.” Nothing in it provides for a refund where the report comes back under five years, and we have not seen one offered.

4. It does not apply to every policy. § 627.7011(6) states the section does not apply to mobile home policies, or to “policies not considered to be ‘homeowners’ policies,’ as that term is commonly understood in the insurance industry.” That second exclusion matters: a dwelling fire form (DP-1 or DP-3) on a rental or a vacant property is generally not understood in the industry as a homeowners’ policy, though the statute does not resolve the point explicitly.

5. Surplus lines is almost certainly outside it. § 626.913(4) provides that “except as may be specifically stated to apply to surplus lines insurers, the provisions of chapter 627 do not apply to surplus lines insurance.” § 627.7011 contains no such statement. Where the only available market is a surplus lines carrier, we would not assume the 15-year rule reaches it. This is an inference from the statutory text rather than a cited holding. (Flagged for counsel review — see checklist.)

What a roof certification actually does

“Roof certification” is a loose term. What the statute and Citizens both want is a document that states a remaining useful life figure, produced by a qualified inspector after looking at the roof.

As published in the bulletin below, Citizens accepts either of two forms for a roof over the age threshold:

• a 4-Point Inspection Form showing at least five years of remaining useful life, or
• a Roof Inspection Form showing at least five years of remaining useful life

Source: Citizens Personal Lines Bulletin, 31 March 2023.

Three things about that document are worth knowing before commissioning one:

At Citizens, as published, five years is a cap rather than a floor. The same bulletin states: “For roofs that qualify, coverage will be extended for a period of up to five years even if the remaining useful life shown on the inspection is greater than five years.” And: “Regardless of the inspection result, five years is the maximum allowed.” Read literally, an inspector writing “12 years remaining” produces the same five-year result at Citizens, and the bulletin reserves Citizens’ right to re-inspect at any time.

It is a condition assessment, not a warranty and not a coverage document. The inspector is giving a professional opinion about how much longer the covering is expected to function. It does not commit the carrier to anything if the roof is later damaged or the condition changes, and it says nothing about how any future claim would be handled — that is determined by the policy and the carrier.

The statutory bar is five years, exactly. § 627.7011(5)(c) sets the threshold at “5 years or more of useful life remaining.” An inspection reporting four years does not meet it.

How we generally work a 20-year roof

General information about how these files tend to run, not a recommendation about any particular property. What is right for a specific home depends on facts we have not seen.

1. The roof’s real age comes first. Permit history for the address is where we look. The date that matters under § 627.7011(5)(d) is when 100% of the surface was last replaced — not the date of the most recent work, and not what a seller’s disclosure said.
2. The covering has to be identified precisely. Asphalt shingle, dimensional shingle, concrete tile, clay tile, standing-seam metal, and metal shingle are treated differently. In our experience this single fact moves the answer more than anything else on this page.
3. On shingle, we generally want the inspection in hand before shopping. A current report showing five or more years of remaining useful life is what the statute keys to, and in our experience having it available changes which markets will look at a file. It does not guarantee an offer from any of them.
4. The inspector gets confirmed with the carrier first. The statute requires the inspector to be approved by the insurer, so a report from someone a carrier does not accept can be money spent twice.
5. The roof settlement basis is a separate question from eligibility. A policy available on a 20-year roof may be written on an actual cash value basis for the roof rather than replacement cost. That is a policy term worth understanding before binding. How any particular claim is settled is determined by the policy language and the carrier, not by anything on this page.
6. Citizens is not automatically the fallback. Citizens’ published age thresholds are comparatively generous on soft coverings, but Citizens also has its own condition rules and an eligibility test that turns on what the private market has offered.

If you want a licensed agent to look at a specific roof, age, and covering before spending anything on an inspection, call 727-290-4747. We can tell you what we are currently seeing from the markets we are appointed with — including when what we are seeing is that the roof needs to be replaced.