The quality of your commercial roofing insurance quote is directly proportional to the quality of information your agent has to work with. Walk into your first meeting with a complete submission package, and you'll get accurate quotes from carriers who understand your operation. Show up with nothing, and your agent is guessing—which means the carriers are guessing, which means you're either overpaying or underinsured.
Your Current Policies and Dec Pages
If you currently carry insurance, bring declarations pages for every active policy. This includes:
- General liability — The dec page shows your current limits, class codes, premium basis (revenue or payroll), and any endorsements listed by form number.
- Workers compensation — Shows your class codes, payroll by code, experience modification rate, and any state-specific endorsements.
- Commercial auto — Vehicle schedules, liability limits, physical damage deductibles, hired/non-owned auto coverage.
- Umbrella/excess liability — Current limits, underlying schedule, any exclusions listed on the dec page.
- Inland marine/equipment floater — Scheduled equipment, blanket limits, deductibles.
- Professional liability (if applicable) — For design-build operations or consulting services.
Your dec pages tell the new agent exactly what you have now, which serves two purposes: they can identify gaps in your current program, and they can match or improve upon your existing coverage structure rather than starting from scratch.
If you can't find your dec pages, call your current carrier directly and request copies. You have a right to these documents regardless of your relationship with your current agent. Most carriers will email them within 24-48 hours.
Loss Runs from the Last 5 Years
Loss runs are the single most important document for quoting commercial roofing insurance. They're a detailed history of every claim filed against your policies—date of loss, type of claim, amounts paid, and amounts reserved. Carriers use loss runs to evaluate your risk profile, and without them, most won't quote at all.
How to get them: Request loss runs directly from each carrier that has insured you over the past five years. Some carriers require the request come from you (the named insured) rather than an agent. Call the carrier's customer service line and ask for "valued loss runs for the past five years." Most will mail or email them within 5-10 business days.
Why five years: Carriers evaluate loss history over a five-year window. A single bad year looks different in the context of four clean years. If you only provide two or three years, the carrier may assume the missing years were problematic and decline to quote.
What carriers look for:
- Frequency of claims (multiple small claims is often worse than one large claim)
- Types of claims (completed operations leaks vs. property damage vs. WC injuries)
- Loss ratio (total claims paid divided by total premium paid)
- Open reserves (outstanding amounts the carrier expects to pay on unresolved claims)
- Trend direction (improving or worsening year over year)
If you've had a bad claims year, prepare a narrative explaining what happened and what you've changed. Carriers and underwriters appreciate context—a $200,000 WC claim from a fall looks different when accompanied by documentation of the safety program improvements you implemented afterward.
Revenue Projections and Payroll Breakdown
General liability premiums for commercial roofers are typically rated on gross revenue. Workers compensation premiums are rated on payroll by class code. Bring both, broken down clearly.
Revenue projections:
- Current year actual revenue (year-to-date)
- Projected revenue for the upcoming policy year
- Revenue breakdown by operation type if you do multiple things (new construction vs. re-roofing vs. repairs vs. maintenance)
- Percentage of work that's subcontracted out (this affects your rate basis)
Payroll breakdown by class code:
- Roofing employees (NCCI 5551) — anyone working on the roof
- Sheet metal workers (NCCI 5538) — if applicable
- Siding/gutter installers (NCCI 5645) — if separated
- Drivers (NCCI 7380) — dedicated drivers not performing roofing work
- Clerical/office (NCCI 8810) — office staff who never visit job sites
- Sales/outside (NCCI 8742) — salespeople and estimators
- Officers/owners — with their elected coverage status
Accurate payroll classification matters enormously. Roofing payroll rates can be $20-$50+ per $100 of payroll depending on your state and EMR, while clerical rates are under $0.50 per $100. Every dollar of payroll you can legitimately classify into a lower-rated code saves real money—but only if the classification is defensible at audit.
Contract Requirements You Need to Meet
Commercial roofing contractors work under contracts that specify insurance requirements. Bring copies of your most demanding contracts—typically from general contractors, property owners, or developers. The agent needs to see:
- Required insurance limits — Many commercial contracts require $1M/$2M GL, $5M umbrella, and specific auto limits. Some (data centers, hospitals, large commercial) require $10M-$25M umbrella.
- Additional insured requirements — Which parties need to be named as additional insureds, and under which endorsement forms.
- Waiver of subrogation requirements — Both GL and WC waivers are commonly required.
- Primary and non-contributory language — Required in most commercial roofing contracts.
- Indemnification clauses — These determine what liability you're contractually accepting and whether your insurance responds to that assumption of liability.
- Professional liability requirements — Design-build contracts may require E&O coverage.
- Specific endorsements — Some owners require specific policy endorsements by form number.
Your new agent should review these contracts and build a program that meets the most demanding requirements you'll face. It's far better to carry slightly higher limits year-round than to scramble for increased limits every time you land a bigger project.
Safety Program Documentation
For commercial roofing operations, your safety program directly impacts both your ability to get quoted and the premium you'll pay. Bring:
Written safety program: A comprehensive document covering fall protection, ladder safety, hot work procedures, heat illness prevention, tool handling, and emergency action plans. If you don't have one, say so—your agent may be able to connect you with resources to build one before going to market.
OSHA 300 logs: Your OSHA recordables for the past three years. Carriers review these to verify that your reported claims align with your recordable incidents.
Training records: Documentation of safety training—toolbox talks, competent person certification, OSHA 10/30 completions for crew leads, fall protection training. Even informal documentation (sign-in sheets with dates and topics) demonstrates a safety culture.
EMR (Experience Modification Rate) letter: Your current EMR worksheet from NCCI or your state rating bureau. An EMR below 1.0 indicates better-than-average loss experience and will improve your premium. Above 1.0 means worse than average. If your EMR is elevated, prepare to explain the claims driving it and what's changed.
Drug testing program: If you maintain pre-employment and random drug testing, document it. Some carriers offer premium credits for verified drug-free workplace programs.
Vehicle fleet safety: MVR (motor vehicle record) checking policies, driver qualification standards, and telematics usage (if any) for your commercial auto program.
Questions to Ask the Agent
The first meeting isn't just about providing information—it's your opportunity to evaluate whether this agent can actually serve a commercial roofing operation. Ask:
"How many roofing contractors do you currently insure?" — You want an agent with meaningful volume in your class. This ensures they have carrier relationships that value their roofing book and give them underwriting flexibility.
"Which carriers will you approach for my account?" — A good agent will name specific markets. For commercial roofing, you want to hear names of E&S carriers and specialty program administrators who actively write the class, not just standard market carriers who might decline.
"How do you handle claims?" — Do they have an in-house claims advocate? Do they attend mediations? Do they push back on reserves? Claims handling separates good agents from order-takers.
"What's your COI turnaround time?" — For commercial roofing, you need certificates fast. Same-day should be standard, with rush requests handled within hours.
"Can you review contracts for insurance compliance?" — A roofing-specialist agent should be able to read a subcontract and tell you whether your insurance program satisfies its requirements.
"How do you handle mid-year changes?" — Adding vehicles, increasing payroll, picking up new operations—these happen constantly in a growing roofing company. How responsive is the agency to endorsement requests?
The preparation you bring to your first meeting with a commercial insurance agent sets the ceiling on quote quality. An underwriter working from incomplete information will either decline to quote or build in premium padding to cover unknown risks. Give your agent everything they need, and they can present you to carriers as a well-managed operation worthy of competitive pricing. That preparation pays for itself many times over in premium savings and coverage adequacy.