By Prerna Kapoor, CLHMS | REAL Brokerage | July 18, 2026
A deal I was part of this spring didn’t fall apart over the inspection. It fell apart over the roof, and not because the roof leaked. It fell apart because the buyer’s insurance company took one look at the age of those shingles and said no.
The Contingency Nobody Talks About Until It’s a Problem
Every buyer’s contract has an inspection contingency and a financing contingency. Almost nobody thinks about the third one until it bites them: can the buyer actually get insured? Lenders won’t fund a loan without a homeowners policy in place, and in Colorado right now, getting that policy is not the formality it used to be. Colorado homeowners insurance premiums have roughly doubled since 2018, and the state now sits near the top of the country for average cost, close to $4,600 a year according to reporting from The Colorado Sun. Hail is the single biggest driver of that number, responsible for something like a quarter to more than half of a typical annual premium depending on where you live.
The Number Underwriters Actually Care About
Get the Free Colorado Seller Guide
Prerna's no-fluff seller playbook, built from real Colorado closings. Straight to your inbox.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ask a Colorado insurance agent what kills a quote and most of them will say the same thing before you finish the question: the roof. Carriers increasingly treat roof age as a hard cutoff rather than a soft factor. A roof under 10 years old usually shops well with plenty of carrier options. Once it crosses 10 to 15 years, underwriting gets noticeably more selective, and past 15 to 20 years, a lot of standard carriers stop offering coverage at all. On top of that, insurers pull a claims history report on the property covering the last several years, and a home with multiple hail or water claims on file can be hard to insure at a normal rate even after every repair has been completed and documented. I’ve had more than one Parker or Highlands Ranch listing this year where the roof, not the buyer’s credit or the lender’s underwriting, was the first thing that almost sank the deal. Douglas County sits squarely inside what meteorologists call hail alley, and buyers here are learning that the hard way.
The Colorado FAIR Plan Is a Backstop, Not a Solution
If a buyer genuinely can’t find a standard carrier, Colorado now has an insurer of last resort. The Colorado FAIR Plan became available for residential properties in April 2025, created under a 2023 state law. Know exactly what it does and doesn’t do before you count on it to save a deal. Coverage is capped at $750,000 combined for the dwelling and contents, and claims are paid on an actual cash value basis, meaning depreciation gets subtracted, not the full replacement cost. There’s no liability coverage, no theft coverage, and no coverage for loss of use if the home becomes unlivable. Hail, wind, vandalism, and smoke aren’t even included by default. A buyer has to add those as extended coverage and pay extra for them. The FAIR Plan keeps a deal from dying outright, but it is not the same protection a buyer would get from a standard policy, and a sharp buyer’s agent will point that out during due diligence.
What’s Actually Changing This Year
Colorado regulators know this is a real problem, and there are two new laws worth knowing about if you’re listing this year. SB26-155, signed by Governor Polis on June 4, 2026, creates a grant program through the state’s Division of Insurance to help homeowners harden their roofs against hail. It’s funded by a small fee on insurers rather than taxpayers, and the fee itself doesn’t start until 2027, so the grants aren’t flowing yet. Still, the state is projecting household savings in the range of $82 to $387 a year once mitigation work is done, which is worth watching if your roof is getting close to that 10 to 15 year mark. Separately, a 2025 law becoming effective later this year will require insurers to factor property-specific wildfire mitigation into their risk models and to notify homeowners of their individual wildfire risk score with the right to appeal it. Neither law fixes the problem today, but both are a sign that the state is treating insurance access as a real housing issue, not a side note.
What I Tell My Sellers Before We Even Take Photos
None of this means you need a brand-new roof to list your home. It means you shouldn’t find out how insurable your house is at the same time your buyer does, three days before closing. Before I put a listing on the market, I ask sellers how old the roof is and whether there have been any hail or water claims filed on the property, even old ones. If the roof is past that 10 to 15 year window, I’ll sometimes suggest getting an insurance quote of your own before we list, just so we know what a buyer is walking into and can price or negotiate around it instead of getting surprised. The Colorado Seller’s Property Disclosure form already asks about prior insurance claims, so this isn’t extra work, it’s just paying closer attention to a question you already have to answer. If your home is a condo, the math is a little different since HO-6 coverage and the HOA’s master policy both come into play, and I’ve written a separate guide to condo insurance that walks through that. Flood zone status matters here too, and I cover that in my flood insurance guide. The sellers who get ahead of this rarely lose a deal over it. The ones who don’t find out the hard way, usually from a panicked phone call a week before closing.
Quick answers
Do I need to replace my roof before I sell my Colorado home? Not necessarily. A roof under 10 to 15 years old usually still shops fine with standard carriers. The bigger risk is not knowing where your roof falls until a buyer’s insurance shopping stalls the deal.
What happens if my buyer can’t get standard insurance at all? They can apply to the Colorado FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. It will get them to closing, but the coverage is more limited and more expensive per dollar of protection than a standard policy, so it’s worth knowing that going in rather than discovering it during underwriting.
Should I get an insurance quote before I even list? If your roof is older or you’ve had a claim in the past several years, yes. It costs you nothing to ask, and it means you’re negotiating from information instead of getting blindsided at the finish line.
If you’re thinking about listing this year and want to know how your home’s insurability actually looks before a buyer finds out during their loan process, I’m always happy to walk through it with you. No pressure, no pitch.
Prerna Kapoor | REALTOR® | Luxury Home Specialist
REAL Brokerage | 720-949-5450 | info@prernakapoor.com
CLHMS • RENE • PSA • ABR | International Sterling Society Award Winner
Prerna specializes in residential real estate across Parker, Aurora, Lone Tree, Castle Pines,
Highlands Ranch, Cherry Creek, Greenwood Village, and Centennial. She speaks English, Japanese,
and Hindi.
