“Her solar panels are ineligible for coverage due to the age of her roof (11 years) and because she has a tile roof.”
Ok, it’s reasonable they would not insure the solar panels. But what’s this with a tile roof?
There are homes in our area that were built at the turn of the 20th century and have the original tile roof. In much of the world (Europe, Latin America) a tile roof is standard.
They literally last centuries unless you live in a place prone to hail.
The durability of asphalt roofs is pathetic in comparison. Has anyone seen a 100 year old asphalt shingled roof?
Drilling through old, brittle tiles and waterproofing those penetrations is very hard to do.
I prefer to have minimal penetrations on my roof — a few plumbing vent stacks and a couple of ventilator fan outlets — that’s it.
My old home still has it’s original shingle roof, It’s 80 years old. The probable in Florida isn’t so much with the tiles as it is with the quality underneath the tiles and sometimes the quality of the tiles. It’s like with bricks, a brick home from the 40’s is usually much better than a home made with modern bricks. The quality of the bricks, and the craftsmanship of the bricklayers and masons is so much superior to today’s work. And a forties roof truss is usually lumber that is true measurement, and a lot of times just rough sawed so that it thicker and usually better quality timber than today’s wood. A roof built in Florida during a building boom period is usually not as good because of materials and quality (gotta get 3 more roofs done today). So it isn’t just that it’s a tile roof, it’s the thickness of the tiles, quality of mounting, and underlying support, There are tile roofs in Tampa that have been there since the Spanish American War.
Tile roofs are vulnerable to wind driven rain.
Heavy rain and 50mph winds happen every summer in my part of Florida.
In my part of Florida, if you have a mortgage, you’ll contractually need basic homeowners, wind and flood policies.
I suspect the issue was that the 11 y.o. roof was not constructed to support the weight of both the solar panels and the tile shingles. Tile shingles have advantages but they are heavy.