Insurance folks . . . one thing that keeps driving my (really our) homeowner premiums up is every asshole in my neighborhood seems to get a new roof every 5 years, no doubt because some roofer grifter tells him there's hail damage. The frequency and regularity of this is not something we should be insuring, at least not like this.
Question: are insurance companies required by state law to offer full replacement cost coverage on roofs? If not, why do they? I understand why we, as a society, want full replacement cost coverage on a house - if it burns down, we need a new house to live in, on land we already own. But why are roofs insured this way? If a hailstorm totals my 1982 Ford Fiesta, I don't expect my auto carrier to buy me a brand new car. Why should I have this expectation for a roof?
Can't insurers raise the deductible on roofs and/or move to a depreciated value model for roofs? That would eliminate a lot of the shenanigans I see in my area. Maybe they are already doing this.