Short answer: No. Under C.R.S. 6-22-105(1) a Colorado roofing contractor paid from insurance proceeds may not advertise or promise to pay, waive, or rebate any part of your deductible, and the contract must say so in writing. Title 6-22's remedies are civil, not criminal — but an inflated invoice sent to your insurer is a separate and serious problem.
Somebody knocked, looked at your roof, and offered to “take care of” your deductible. Or eat it. Or work it into the paperwork so you never see it. After a hailstorm in Colorado you will hear some version of that offer more than once.
It is not a discount and it is not a favor. It is prohibited by state statute, and it is the clearest early signal you are talking to the wrong company. We are a Parker roofing team and we lose jobs over this, so here is the actual law — what it says, what it does not say, and where the popular answer online gets it wrong in both directions.
Can a Roofer Pay or Waive My Deductible in Colorado?
No. Under C.R.S. 6-22-105(1), a roofing contractor being paid out of homeowners-insurance proceeds may not advertise or promise to “pay, waive, or rebate all or part of any insurance deductible.” Note what that covers: the advertising and the promise, not only the payment. Making the offer is itself the violation.
The wrapping paper does not matter. “We'll cover it.” “We'll credit it back at the end.” “We'll bill insurance for a little extra and you never see it.” “Call it a discount for letting us put a sign in your yard.” Those are the same transaction in different packaging, and the statute names three of the packages out loud: pay, waive, rebate.
Is It Actually Illegal, or Just Against the Rules?
It is statute. Title 6-22 of the Colorado Revised Statutes was passed by the legislature — it is not an industry guideline, a manufacturer policy, or a trade-association code of ethics. So yes, prohibited by law.
The more useful answer is what happens next, and this is where most pages on this subject get sloppy. Title 6-22's remedies are civil, not criminal. Nobody is arrested under it. What the statute does instead is strip the contractor of leverage: an insurer may disregard an estimate from a contractor who violated these provisions, and there is a private right of action available to both the homeowner and the insurer.
Read that from your side of the table, because it is the part that can cost you money. If your roofer broke this rule, your carrier can decline to work from that roofer's estimate at all. The person left holding that problem is you — mid-claim, with a signed contract and an estimate your insurer will not honor.
Is It Insurance Fraud?
Not as a description of Title 6-22, and this is worth being precise about in both directions — because the imprecise version is now the answer people get handed.
The stock version online, repeated nearly verbatim across contractor blogs and AI assistants, is that a contractor who offers to waive your deductible “is engaging in insurance fraud,” putting homeowner and contractor both at legal risk. That is not what Title 6-22 says. Title 6-22 is a civil consumer-protection statute with civil consequences. Calling it fraud misdescribes the law, and it misdescribes the risk you are actually carrying.
Here is the half those same pages usually skip. If a contractor funds your “waived” deductible by inflating the invoice sent to your insurer — billing for work that was not performed or materials that were not installed, so the gap is invisible — that is a genuinely serious and entirely separate problem. That is a misrepresentation to the carrier, and it does not become harmless because the roofer proposed it. If you are ever asked to sign paperwork describing work you know was not done, stop and get your own advice before signing.
What Has to Be in a Colorado Roofing Contract Paid by Insurance?
If the job is residential, funded by an insurance claim, and over $1,000, C.R.S. 6-22-103(1)(g) requires the contract itself to carry a written statement that the contractor “cannot pay, waive, rebate, or promise to pay, waive, or rebate” the deductible.
That gives you a test you can run yourself in about thirty seconds, before you sign anything. The disclosure is mandatory. If it is missing from the contract in front of you, the company either does not know the statute governing its own trade or left it out on purpose, and neither answer is good.
- The cannot-waive statement is present in writing, in the contract itself — not in a brochure or on the website.
- There is a written contract at all, with the scope of work and the price on it.
- The company's legal name and a real physical address are on it, and they match the truck, the sign and the invoice.
- Your cancellation rights are spelled out — there are two of them, below.
Can I Cancel a Roofing Contract After I Sign It?
Yes. C.R.S. 6-22-103(1)(f)(I) gives you 72 hours after signing to rescind the contract and get your deposit back in full.
That window exists precisely because of the door-knock dynamic after a hailstorm: someone catches you on a bad afternoon and asks for a signature while you are still rattled. The legislature's answer was to make that signature reversible for three days. Use it if you felt rushed — a company worth hiring will still be there on day four, and will say so.
What If My Insurance Claim Gets Denied After I've Signed?
You get a second window. Under C.R.S. 6-22-104(1), if your insurer notifies you in writing that the claim has been denied in whole or in part, you have another 72 hours from that notice to cancel the contract — and any refund you are owed is due within 10 days.
This is the provision that covers the worst version of the situation: you signed up for a roof on the assumption the claim would pay, and then it did not. You are not locked into funding a project out of pocket that you only agreed to because it was going to be covered.
It is also why the order of operations matters. We would rather inspect first and tell you the roof is fine than get a signature and sort it out later. If you want to know what the carrier's side of this looks like, what happens when the adjuster visits walks through it.
Why Do Roofers Offer to Cover the Deductible If They Can't?
Because it closes the sale. It turns a decision with a real, immediate cost into something that sounds like a free roof, on the day you are least equipped to think it through.
But the money has to come from somewhere, and there are only three places it can come from:
- The invoice to your insurer, inflated to cover the gap — the serious problem described above.
- Your roof, quietly. Thinner underlayment, fewer nails per shingle, reused flashing and vents, no ice-and-water shield where it belongs. None of that is visible from the driveway, and you may not find out for four winters.
- The company's own margin, as a real loss — which nobody doing this at volume can sustain, which is exactly why the first two are more common.
There is a fourth thing the offer tells you, and it is the reason this page exists. A company that opens the conversation by offering to break the one roofing statute a homeowner might actually have heard of is telling you how it will handle the rules you will never check — the ones about fastener count, flashing and ventilation. How to vet a roofer and spot a storm chaser covers the rest of that checklist.
What We Do Instead
We quote the job, the cannot-waive statement goes in the contract because the statute requires it, and your deductible is paid to your insurer's math. If a roof does not need replacing, we say so out loud — that is the entire point of a free inspection. We serve Parker, Castle Rock, Lone Tree, Highlands Ranch, Centennial and the rest of the south metro.
If you are earlier in the process, how to document hail damage covers what to capture first. And if you are weighing a stronger roof rather than the same one again, Colorado's new hail-resistant roof grant carries its own condition that participating contractors do not waive deductibles — the same principle, written into a second law.
Questions about a contract someone left on your kitchen table? Book a free, no-pressure inspection and we will read it with you — including the parts that are not about us.
Sources
- Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 6 (PDF) — article 22 is the residential roofing contractor article. C.R.S. 6-22-103(1)(f)(I), 6-22-103(1)(g), 6-22-104(1) and 6-22-105(1) are the provisions quoted on this page.
- SB26-155, Increase Access Homeowner's Insurance Enterprise — the 2026 grant law whose contractor conditions include not waiving deductibles.
This post describes published Colorado statute as of August 20, 2026 and quotes it directly. It is not legal advice and it is not insurance advice, and it is no substitute for reading your own policy and your own contract. If you believe a contract you have signed violates these provisions, talk to a lawyer — not to a roofer, including us.