Short answer: No. Not yet, and not this year. Senate Bill 26-155 takes effect August 12, 2026, but it only creates the enterprise that will run the grant program. The board isn't seated, the rules aren't written, and the fee that funds the grants doesn't start until 2027. There is no homeowner application today.
Colorado's roof-resilience law takes effect today. Senate Bill 26-155 was signed by the governor on June 4, 2026 and appears in the session laws as chapter 373 with an effective date of August 12, 2026. The General Assembly adjourned May 13, 2026, and bills passed without a safety clause take effect ninety days after that — which is today.
We're a roofing company in Parker, so we have an obvious interest in you replacing your roof. That is exactly why we want to be the ones to tell you there is no money to apply for yet. Everything below is quoted or paraphrased from the statute and the state's own program page, both linked at the bottom, and we re-read both of them this morning before publishing.
Is there a Colorado grant for a new roof right now?
No. As of this morning, August 12, 2026, there is no homeowner grant application, no application date, and no money to award.
The Division of Insurance runs an official page for the program at doi.colorado.gov/sche. The only thing you can apply for there is a volunteer seat on the Enterprise Board — the body that still has to write the grant rules. That page says initial interviews for board applicants "are expected to occur during late July/early August." Its Public Comment section says "Coming soon." Its Testimony section says "Coming soon." That wording has not changed since we first checked it on July 10.
What does SB26-155 actually do?
It creates a government-owned business called the Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise inside the Division of Insurance. The enterprise collects an annual fee from insurers and uses the revenue to fund grants to Colorado homeowners for installing what the statute calls a "resilient roof system." In the legislature's own summary, the enterprise reduces "insurer losses and administrative expenses due to hail damage claims by defraying the cost of retrofitting residential property by providing grants for the installation of resilient roof systems."
A seven-member board governs it — the Insurance Commissioner or their designee, plus members with expertise in home hardening, resilient roof systems, insurance underwriting or actuarial analysis, and members representing insurers, consumers and counties. The governor appoints them and the Senate confirms them. The statute gives a deadline of no later than January 1, 2027 for those initial appointments.
Until that board exists and adopts rules, there is no eligibility standard, no roof standard, no contractor standard and no application. The law creates the machine. The machine has not been built yet.
Who pays for the grants — is this coming out of my premium?
The fee is charged to insurance companies, not to you, and the statute expressly forbids passing it through. Beginning in the 2027 calendar year, each covered insurer pays an amount equal to 0.5% of the total premium it collected on multiperil homeowners policies in Colorado in the preceding calendar year. The act then says plainly that the insurer "shall not surcharge the fee amount to policyholders." The enterprise can also lower or stop collecting the fee to keep total revenue under $100 million across its first five years.
How much of the money actually goes to homeowners?
At least 85%. The legislature's own bill summary states: "At least 85% of the fee revenue must be used for grants to Colorado homeowners to retrofit residential property to reduce insurer losses due to hail and windstorms." The same floor appears in the statute itself at C.R.S. 10-4-2004(8).
This is worth stating carefully because the most widely syndicated explainer on this law says 90 percent, and that figure has been repeated into other articles and into AI-generated summaries of the program. It is not what the statute says. The number is 85, and it is a floor, not a cap — the board could allocate more.
The remainder funds the enterprise's other statutory jobs: analyzing hail-loss data to target where resilient roofs do the most good, setting resilient-roof standards, awarding workforce training grants for installing and certifying those systems, creating codes of conduct for roofing contractors, and a study of insurance risk in high-risk wildfire areas of the state.
When can Colorado homeowners apply for a roof grant?
There is no official date. Anyone who gives you one is guessing.
What the statute does fix are these dates: board appointments no later than January 1, 2027; the insurer fee begins in the 2027 calendar year; insurers begin filing annual resilient-roof data no sooner than January 1, 2027 and only after the commissioner adopts rules; and the enterprise's first report to the legislature is due July 1, 2028. Grant applications have to come after the board is seated, after it adopts rules, and after there is fee revenue to award. On the statute's own timeline, that puts the earliest realistic window somewhere in 2027.
The only official way to hear it first is the Division of Insurance email list, linked from the program page in the sources below. We'll update this post when the board is seated and again when it publishes standards.
What kind of roof will qualify for a grant?
Not decided yet — the board sets the standard by rule. But the statute names a benchmark. It defines a "resilient roof system" as "a roof that has obtained a verified wind and hail certification from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety 'FORTIFIED' program or a similar science-based, verifiable certification, as determined by the board by rule." (C.R.S. 10-4-2002(6))
Two things follow from that sentence, and both get mangled in the coverage:
- FORTIFIED is a benchmark, not the only door. The board may approve other "similar science-based, verifiable" certifications by rule, and the enterprise is specifically tasked with evaluating roofing protocols against that standard.
- The phrase "Class 4" does not appear anywhere in the act. Impact-resistant materials show up once, as something the board may choose to prioritize. So nobody can honestly tell you the law requires a Class 4 shingle — the law does not mention them. If you want the actual definition and the honest version of the insurance-discount question, we wrote that one out separately.
In awarding grants the board is directed to prioritize an applicant's primary residence, and to weigh applicant income, the age of the roof, the size of the home, the number of applicants, whether the home sits in a locality with hail-resistant building codes, and whether the property is somewhere historically more susceptible to extreme weather. Note that last pair: local code adoption and hail history are both criteria, which is a real consideration for Douglas County and the rest of the Front Range hail belt.
Will I have to use a particular contractor?
Yes, and the requirements are already in the statute even though the rules aren't. A homeowner receiving a grant must "select a contractor licensed in the state" that is a member of a professional association and that "attests that the contractor does not waive deductibles and agrees to repair, rather than replace, roofs when appropriate." Separately, a contractor that is awarded bids and receives grant money "is prohibited from waiving homeowner's insurance deductibles."
One honest wrinkle worth watching: Colorado has no statewide roofing license — roofing is licensed at the municipal level here, town by town. How the board reads "licensed in the state" is one of the things rulemaking will have to settle, and it is a fair question to raise during the public comment period the state says is coming.
The deductible language is not new law, by the way. A roofing contractor paid from homeowners-insurance proceeds already may not advertise or promise to "pay, waive, or rebate all or part of any insurance deductible" under C.R.S. 6-22-105(1), and every insurance-funded residential roofing contract over $1,000 must carry a written statement that the contractor "cannot pay, waive, rebate, or promise to pay, waive, or rebate" it. SB26-155 simply adds one more consequence to a practice that was already prohibited and was always a red flag.
What should a homeowner do in the meantime?
- Sign up for the Division of Insurance email list on the program page linked below. That is the only channel that will be right on day one.
- Do not let the word "grant" move up your timeline. If your roof needs replacing now because of storm damage or age, waiting on a program with no date and no rules is not a plan. If it doesn't need replacing, this program is not a reason to replace it.
- Know the actual condition of your roof, so that whenever the rules land you already know whether they apply to you. Ours is a free, no-pressure inspection with written findings you can hand to anyone — including the finding that your roof is fine, which we give out often.
- Be skeptical of anyone selling urgency around this. There is no deadline to miss right now, because there is nothing open.
- If you're weighing scope in the meantime, repair versus replacement after hail is the more useful question this month, and what Douglas County actually requires when you re-roof is the rulebook that governs the work today.
We'd rather lose a job than have you hear the exciting version of this from someone standing on your porch. The law is real, the money is coming, and none of it is available yet.
Sources
- Colorado General Assembly — SB26-155, Increase Access Homeowner's Insurance Enterprise — bill summary as enacted, sponsors, and the session-laws entry (chapter 373, effective 08/12/2026)
- SB26-155 — signed act (PDF), the source for the statutory quotations above (C.R.S. 10-4-2002(6), 10-4-2003, 10-4-2004)
- Colorado Division of Insurance — Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise program page — board applications, listserv signup, and the "Coming soon" public comment and testimony sections (re-read August 12, 2026)
- Colorado General Assembly — effective dates for bills enacted without a safety clause — the August 12, 2026 date follows from adjournment on May 13, 2026
- Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 6 (PDF) — article 22, the existing roofing-contractor and deductible provisions
This post describes published statute and the state's official program page as of August 12, 2026. It is not legal advice and not insurance advice. Program details will change once the Enterprise Board adopts rules — verify with the Division of Insurance before relying on any of it.