How to check a roofing company in a state that does not license them
There is no Texas roofing licence to look up, so the checks that would be automatic in a licensed trade are yours to run. These are the ones that actually separate companies here.
In most trades the first check is the licence. You look up the number, you see whether it is current, you see whether anyone has filed against it. That check does not exist for roofing in Texas.
Texas does not license roofing contractors. No state exam, no state registration, no state board. It is one of the reasons hail season brings so many out of state crews to the South Plains, and it is why the questions below matter more here than they would in a licensed state.
The three laws that do apply
There is no licence, but roofing in Texas is not unregulated. Three rules shape what a company may do with your insurance claim, and knowing them tells you a great deal about who you are talking to.
One. They cannot absorb your deductible. Texas Insurance Code Chapter 707 makes it unlawful for a contractor to pay, rebate, waive or absorb an insurance deductible, or to advertise that they will. The offer sounds generous. What it actually proposes is a number on an invoice that does not match what you paid, on a claim in your name.
Two. They cannot be your adjuster and your roofer on the same claim. Texas law bars a roofing contractor from acting as a public insurance adjuster on a property they are contracting to repair. A company that offers to “handle the whole claim for you” is describing a job it is not permitted to do on the roof it is also selling.
Three. Your contract has to let you out if the claim is denied. Under Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 1102, a roofing contract tied to an insurance claim must give you the right to cancel within a set period if the insurer denies the claim in whole or in part. A contract with no such clause is missing something the state requires.
All three checked September 2026. None of this is legal advice, and a lawyer is the person to ask about your particular contract.
What to check instead of a licence
Insurance, verified at the source. Ask for general liability and workers’ compensation certificates and ring the agent listed on them. A certificate is a PDF; an agent confirming the policy is live is evidence. Texas does not require most employers to carry workers’ comp, so a roofer may genuinely not have it. That is worth knowing before a crew is on your roof, because the exposure lands somewhere.
A permanent address in this area. Not a PO box, not a suite number that turns out to be a mailbox store. The workmanship warranty is worth exactly as much as the company’s continued existence.
How long, under this name. Roofing companies dissolve and re-form. The question is not “how many years in roofing”, which anyone can answer, but how long this entity has traded under this name. Texas Comptroller and Secretary of State records are public.
The permit. The City of Lubbock requires a roofing permit to tear off and replace shingles. Ask who is pulling it. A company that pulls permits under its own name is a company that expects an inspector to look at its work.
References from four years ago, not four months. Anybody can produce a happy customer from last week. A roof that was going to fail through poor flashing or reused boots tends to say so in year three or four.
Whether the bid is a scope or a number. A one line bid saying “replace roof, $14,000” is not something you can compare, hold anyone to, or claim against. See the cost page for the line items a real bid carries.
After hail, specifically
A big hail day in Lubbock brings crews from Oklahoma, New Mexico and the Metroplex, and some of them are good. The failure mode is not usually bad work on the day. It is that the warranty holder has left the state by the time the first leak shows.
Two questions cut through most of it. Who will be on my roof, your employees or a subcontracted crew? And who do I call in year three, and will that be the same company answering?
Questions people ask
- Is a roofer who says they are "licensed and insured" lying?
Not necessarily, but the word licensed is doing no work in Texas for roofing. They may hold a general contractor registration in a particular city, or a licence in another trade, or they may mean insured and be using the words loosely. Ask what licence, issued by whom. Insured is the part you can and should verify.
- What is RCAT?
The Roofing Contractors Association of Texas runs a voluntary registration and certification programme. It is a trade body rather than a regulator, so it cannot discipline a company the way a licensing board could, but a company that bothered to register did something optional.
- Someone knocked on my door after the storm. Is that a bad sign?
Not on its own, and after a big hail day in Lubbock plenty of legitimate local companies canvass. The question is not whether they knocked, it is whether they are still here in three years when the workmanship warranty matters.
- Do I have to use the contractor my insurer suggests?
No. You choose who does the work. An insurer can recommend and can dispute the scope or price, but the contract is between you and the roofer.