Will a Metal Roof Lower My Insurance Premium?

It’s one of the most common questions homeowners ask when considering a metal roof — and almost every answer online is written to sell you something. Here’s the honest version, based on what I’ve actually seen happen with real customers.

In all the years I’ve been installing metal roofs across Southwestern Ontario, insurance is something that comes up far more before the job than after it. People want to know if the roof will pay them back in premium savings. It’s a fair question, so let me give you a fair answer — including the parts most roofers won’t mention.

It can go both ways — and most people only hear one side

Here’s the thing nobody tells you: a metal roof can actually raise your premium. I’ve seen it happen. The logic is simple once you hear it — a metal roof is a higher-ticket item than a standard asphalt shingle roof. If your house ever needs that roof replaced for any reason, the insurer is on the hook for a bigger payout. Some companies price that in and your premium goes up.

I’ve also seen it go the other way, where a homeowner’s premium dropped after switching to metal. So this isn’t a case of “metal always saves you money” or “metal always costs you more.” Every insurance company has its own policies, and they don’t all look at metal the same way.

A finished metal roof on a home in our service area.

A real example: when the premium went up

This is exactly where my “it can go both ways” comes from. I had a homeowner call me after their metal roof was installed. Their insurance company had told them their premium was going up — specifically because they’d put on a metal roof, since it was a higher-ticket item than the asphalt shingles it replaced.

So what did they do? They shopped around. They found another provider who gave them a premium comparable to what they were paying before the metal roof went on. Problem solved.

That’s the practical lesson buried in this whole topic: if your current insurer raises your rate over a metal roof, you don’t just have to accept it. It might simply mean it’s time to shop your home insurance.

What insurers actually reward — and it’s mostly wind

When an insurer does lower a premium for metal, what are they really paying you back for? In our part of Ontario, the big one is wind.

A metal roof is far more wind resistant than asphalt — and here’s the part that matters most: it doesn’t lose that wind resistance over time. An asphalt roof is at its most wind resistant the day it’s installed. Twenty years later, it’s a shadow of that. A metal roof? It’s just as wind resistant in twenty years as the day it went on. That consistency is worth something to an insurer who’s thinking about the long game.

Fire is the other factor people bring up. We don’t have a wildfire risk in this area the way some regions do, so it’s less of a driver here. But it’s still real: asphalt shingles are saturated in oil, which makes a house light up faster. A metal roof isn’t combustible. In wildfire country, that matters a lot to insurers. Around here, wind is the headline.

What about hail? The Class 4 reality

Hail comes up a lot, but I’ll be straight with you — in our region it’s really not a concern. In 14 years of metal roofing, I’ve had exactly one insurance claim on a metal roof for hail damage, and that was a freak storm with hail we almost never see here.

Will metal dent? Yes. If you get hail an inch or more in diameter, it’ll dent metal roofing. Honestly, with hail that size, there isn’t much of anything that won’t get dented or damaged. So I’m not going to tell you metal is hail-proof, because it isn’t.

What metal does give you is integrity. Most metal roofing carries a Class 4 hail rating — the highest there is. Even after a severe hailstorm, the roof stays together and keeps the water out. You’re not dealing with leaks. Compare that to a tile roof, where you can end up with cracked tiles that need replacing immediately to stop water getting in. That one hail-damaged roof I replaced? It was still completely intact and watertight. It was just badly dented — a cosmetic problem, not a structural one.

Quality steel holds its integrity even after a severe storm.

One thing to ask about: cosmetic damage exclusions

Here’s the flip side of that “dented but watertight” reality, and it’s worth knowing before you sign anything. Because metal dents without leaking, some insurers single metal roofs out for what’s called a cosmetic damage exclusion — sometimes offered as a waiver in exchange for a slightly lower premium. It does exactly what the name says: if hail dents your roof but doesn’t actually let water through, the insurer can decline to pay for it. In other words, the very situation I just described — a roof that’s badly dented but completely sound — is the one these clauses are written to exclude.

I’ll be careful here, because I can’t tell you exactly how every Ontario policy handles this. But it’s absolutely worth a direct question to your insurer: does my policy exclude cosmetic damage, and is there a waiver attached to any discount you’re being offered? A few dollars off your premium isn’t worth much if it quietly signs away your hail coverage.

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So are the savings even worth chasing?

Let me be blunt, because this is where I think homeowners deserve the truth: I would not tell anyone to buy a metal roof to lower their insurance premium.

If you want to shop your insurance after going metal, sure — it might be worth looking into. But from everything I’ve seen, the savings aren’t drastic. They’re not the kind of number that changes your decision. If insurance premiums are the only reason you’re considering a metal roof, you’re looking at it from the wrong angle.

The bigger insurance story nobody talks about: staying insurable

Here’s the part that actually matters, and it’s not about premiums at all.

Insurers don’t just care what your roof is made of — they care how old it is and what condition it’s in. I’ve done plenty of roofs over the years for homeowners who got hit with an ultimatum: replace your roof within a certain window, or we’ll stop insuring your home. That’s a real thing that happens to aging asphalt roofs.

Now here’s what I’ve never seen, not once in 14 years: a homeowner calling to tell me their insurance company is dropping them because their metal roof is now 15 or 20 years old. It doesn’t happen. A quality metal roof takes you out of that cycle entirely. It keeps your home insurable, and it means you’re not being forced to tear off and replace a roof every couple of decades just to keep your coverage — even when the roof still looks great.

How to actually find out for your home

If you want a real answer for your specific situation, follow these steps:

So why get a metal roof, then?

If the honest answer is “don’t do it for the insurance,” then what’s the real reason? It comes down to peace of mind.

A quality metal roof is a permanent, maintenance-free system on your home. You’re not going to be the homeowner calling your insurer in a panic because shingles blew off, or a tile cracked, or there’s an immediate leak you need fixed before it ruins your ceiling. You’re simply not living with that worry. That — far more than a few dollars off your premium — is the reason to go metal.