Best 3 Home Warranty Companies for Roof Coverage (2021)

Most home warranties offer coverage on your home’s appliances and systems, but many have expanded their coverage to include roof leaks. Homeowners insurance covers damage from natural disasters, but roof leaks caused by rain or normal wear-and-tear and be quite expensive without a home warranty. Finding the best home warranty roof leak coverage for your home can be a challenge when you’re not an expert in home warranties. To help, House Method made a guide for finding the right one. In our guide you will find the following:

• Best home roof warranty providers of 2021
• Roof repair costs and coverage
• Differences in home warranty roof coverage policies
• How to care for your roof
• House Method’s top roof warranty provider recommendations

Read on to learn about steps you can take to maintain your roof, common issues that can lead to leaks, and home warranty roof leak coverage that could limit the amount you have to spend on repairs. 

There’s a reason people refer to your home as “the roof over your head.” The roof is a key component in your home, keeping damaging elements, like rain, out of your house. Most roof leaks aren’t covered by home insurance, so a home warranty plan is a good way to protect yourself from the cost of roof repairs and give you peace of mind.

Unfortunately, your roof can have a leak for a long time before you realize it, causing unseen damage to the walls, ceilings, insulation, and framing. The resulting dampness can also promote the growth of mold in your home, which can be a serious health hazard. By the time you notice a drip from the ceiling and run for a bucket, you could be facing a big repair bill.

House Method’s top recommendations

For home warranty roof leak coverage, House Method ranked the following based on coverage, coverage caps, and pricing.

• Choice Home Warranty: Best Overall
• American Home Shield: Most Customizable
• Select Home Warranty: Most Cost-effective

1. Choice Home Warranty

Choice Home Warranty is one of the industry’s best home warranty providers and carries a B rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Choice Home Warranty offers two plans, the Basic Plan and the more comprehensive Total Plan. Optional coverage can be added to either plan, including a roof leak coverage warranty. 

Here are the pricing and plans that Choice Home Warranty offers:

To get a free quote from Choice Home Warranty, fill out this online form or call 929-400-6164.

For more information, read our Choice Home Warranty Review.

2. American Home Shield

American Home Shield is another top home warranty provider that serves over 2 million homes across the United States. American Home Shield offered three coverage plans, ShieldSilver for appliances, ShieldGold for systems, and ShieldPlatinum for a combo plan that covers both. Roof leak coverage is included in the ShieldPlatinum plan.

AHS allows its customers to choose their service fee of $75, $100 or $125. If a customer chooses a lower service fee, the monthly premium will be higher and vice versa.

Pricing and plans offered by Select Home Warranty are laid out below: 

To get a free quote from American Home Shield, fill out this online form or call 888-365-2839.

To read more, visit our American Home Shield review.

3. Select Home Warranty

Select Home Warranty is well-known for its affordability in its low deductibles and unique offerings. Select Home Warranty has three different coverage plans: Bronze Care that covers appliances, Gold Care for systems, and the combo-plan Platinum Care. Optional coverage, including roof leak coverage, can be added on to any of the plans for an additional fee.

Pricing and plans offered by Select Home Warranty are laid out below: 

To get a free quote from Select Home Warranty, fill out this online form or call 888-370-3953.

Read our Select Home Warranty review to learn more.

Are roof leaks covered by a home warranty?

A home warranty is a service contract that covers specific items, like home appliances and home systems, depending on the plan your purchase. The best home warranty providers cover issues that result from typical wear and tear and do not cover issues that arise if you use an appliance or system incorrectly.

When you have a home warranty and need a repair on a covered item, you call your home warranty company, who will arrange for a pre-screened service technician to come to your home. The technician will determine if the issue is covered, and if so, they will repair it if possible. All you will be charged for is the service call, a fee that generally ranges from $75-$125. Pricing is different for each provider, so check your service contact to know what your fees and monthly premiums will be.

Home warranties allow you to limit the cost of unexpected repairs because you only have to pay the service fee rather than the entire cost to repair or replace covered appliances or systems. With something like a roof leak, which is only going to get worse as time passes, it’s important to act as soon as you discover the leak. If knowing you’ll only have to pay a small service fee will prevent you from delaying the repair, home warranty roof leak coverage could easily pay for itself. A home warranty covers an array of major appliances and systems that a home buyer may be interested in having covered, but a roof leak warranty is typically optional add-on coverage to a basic plan.

Differences in home warranty roof coverage

If you are in the market for a home warranty, the best way to determine if roof leaks are covered is to read the sample contract that most home warranty companies make available on their website. These contracts list what is covered by the service provider, what is excluded, and what can be added as optional coverage. The contract will also note if the warranty coverage has a dollar limit on it.

As you examine different policies, you’ll find that roof leak coverage is usually an add-on, so it will cost you extra beyond the normal home warranty premium and service call fee. The contract will probably use a phrase like “limited roof leak,” and the limits could include the dollar amount of repair costs the company will pay to cover. Repairs may be limited to roofs that are over living areas of single-family homes, and most policies don’t cover roofs with skylights.

If the damage is so bad that all or part of your roof must be replaced, some warranty plans will estimate how much just fixing the leak would have cost and will provide that much money to go toward the roof replacement. Other plans won’t cover any of the replacement cost. Reading your home warranty reviews, your providers coverage options, and going through your service contact is essential to knowing what is and isn’t covered.

Some home warranty companies only offer the roof leak add-on in policies that real estate professionals purchase for their buyers and sellers. Oftentimes, the policy won’t cover the seller but will pay for covered repairs after the buyer takes possession of the house.

Roof types in the US

Roofing options vary widely across the US for homeowners to choose from. Roof types come in different sizes, shapes, colors, materials, and technological capabilities and finding the perfect one for your home can be difficult without an expert. The most popular roof type of houses in the United States is asphalt shingles roof.

This type is the most cost-effective option for homeowners, which is what makes it so popular. However, roofing materials and installation is expensive no matter what.

Asphalt roofs are made from primarily shingles and the buyer has three options for types of shingles: 3-tab, dimensional, and luxury, with dimensional being the most common. Other than shingles, this roof needs a variety of asphalt roof components such as roof decking, ice and water shield, underlayment, flashing, vents, ridge capping and more. It’s safe to assume that building or replacing your roof will be costly, but it will last up to 30 years!

Other types of materials used for roofing are clay and concrete tiles, metal roofing, slate, wood shingles and shake and synthetic roofing. You should take into account cost, weight, color, style, lifespan, and maintenance of your preferred roofing material before choosing a roof type for your home.

Home warranty companies that provide roof coverage

Not all home warranty coverage is equal. If you want roof leak to be included in your contract, that’s an important factor to consider when selecting a provider. After extensive research and reviews, House Method put together a table of the best home warranty companies that provide roof coverage.

How long will my roof last?

Roofing materials are designed to have a long life. Asphalt shingles have a lifespan of 15–30 years, wood shakes of 30–50 years, and metal and tile of more than 50 years, according to the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. In fact, asphalt shingles are one of the few products that people often refer to by their warranty life, such as a 30-year shingle.

However, the manufacturer’s warranty on those singles only covers defects in the product itself. So, unless the shingles on your roof melt away in a rainstorm, it’s pretty unlikely that the 30-year warranty is going to come into play. It’s far more likely to experience leaks as a result of either improper installation or natural wear and tear.

Most roofing contractors will guarantee installation for one or two years, but it can take five or six years for problems to show up, so that installation warranty isn’t likely to be helpful, either.

Cost of roof repairs

The cost of repairing a leaky roof can vary widely. The national average for a small repair is about $650, but a larger repair could be well over $2,000. In Virginia, costs to replace an asphalt shingle roof can range from $6,500-$13,000 depending on roof size and location. This cost includes removal and disposal of old roof, new roofing materials, and labor costs.

Many roof leaks stem from problems with the flashing. Flashing is a strip of metal—typically either galvanized steel or aluminum—used in areas of the roof, like seams around skylights and chimneys,­ to help keep water from seeping in.

How to care for your roof

Because your home warranty will only cover normal wear and tear, it’s important to conduct a roof inspection at least once a year. You can do this by standing in your yard, by looking through binoculars, or by looking through an upstairs window. 

Look for the following problems:

• Visible dips
• Warped, cracked, or missing shingles
• Loose or forced up flashing around the chimney and skylights
• Moss or mold growing between shingles
• Leaves or pine needles in the gutters
• Snow or ice weighing down the shingles

You can remove moss, mold, leaves, pine needles, snow, and ice yourself with your hands or a soft-bristled brush. However, we would recommend hiring a professional if you come across larger issues, like damaged flashing or shingles and dips.

House Method home warranty provider ranking methodology

At House Method, transparency and trust are our most important values for the reader. That’s why we took the time to create an objective rating system and score each home warranty provider according to our methodology.

We’ve done the homework for you and have researched over 50 home warranty companies so you can have the information you need to make the best choice for your home. Additionally, transparency and trust are our most important values for the reader.

That’s why we took the time to create an objective rating system and score each home warranty provider according to our methodology. Our team spent hours on the phone speaking to representatives from each home warranty company to get information right from the source. We also dug into the fine print on each company’s service agreement to make sure no detail was left out.

To make the most of our research, we developed a formula to objectively determine the best home warranty companies based on the following criteria:

• Plans: Do they provide a variety of plan options? We looked at the number of plans each company offered and the flexibility of adjusting the plan.
• Prices: How reasonable are the monthly fees and service fees in comparison to the industry average? We compared the costs of each company to competitors.
• Coverage: How many items are covered in each plan? We looked at the number of items each company covers. We dig into all service contracts available to get all the details.
• Customer service: How is the customer experience when calling the providers? Based on our phone calls, we were able to judge each company’s customer service.
• Trust: What do customers rate the company? We looked into what customers are saying about their experience with the company.
• Nationwide availability: How many states does the company cover? We found the number of states covered by each company.
• Unique perks: Does the company offer discounts or cover special items? We looked for perks offered by each company that sets them apart from the competition.

How do we keep our data up to date?

We want to make sure we’re providing you, the consumer, with the most current data available for every home warranty company we’ve researched and rated. That takes significant effort but we feel that’s vital to providing you thorough and trustworthy reviews.

With that in mind, we have dedicated staff members who regularly update our database of home warranty research.

*Terms and conditions apply. Review complete limits of liability and any exclusions. CHW offers service contracts which are not warranties.
**See policy for specifics on response times.
***CHW reserves the right to offer cash back in lieu of repair or replacement in the amount of CHW’s actual cost (which at times may be less than retail) to repair or replace any covered system, component or appliance.
****In the event a claim is denied, and a customer seeks to have Us review that denial, We have the right to request routine maintenance records in reviewing its decision.