How to Choose a Roofing Contractor at a glance
| Checklist covers | 6 stages - shortlist, verify, question, compare, negotiate, sign |
|---|---|
| Bids to collect | 3 written and itemized, on identical scope |
| Insurance to confirm | General liability + workers' compensation |
| Licensing | Set by state - check your state board (NASCLA directory) |
| References | 3 minimum, and call at least one |
| Right to cancel | 3 business days on $25+ in-home sales (FTC rule) |
| Biggest red flag | Large cash deposit + pressure to sign today |
| Warranty documents | Two - manufacturer material and contractor workmanship |
| Pairs with | The roof replacement checklist |
Quick answer: Choose a roofing contractor in six stages - build a shortlist of three, verify license and insurance independently, ask every candidate the same technical questions, compare three itemized bids on identical scope, negotiate the terms rather than the price, and sign a contract that names products, milestones and both warranties. Licensing rules are set by your state, not nationally, so check your state board before you assume anyone is licensed.
Roofing is one of the few trades where the customer usually cannot see the finished product. That asymmetry is why hiring well matters more here than it does with a kitchen or a bathroom - and why the checklist below spends more time on verification than on charm.
Work it in order. Print it, take it to every appointment, and tick the boxes.
Stage 1: Build a shortlist of three
You want three real candidates before anyone quotes anything. Where they come from matters.
- Ask two neighbors who have had roofs done in the last five years
- Note the company signs you actually see in your zip code
- Check reviews across at least two independent platforms, not just the one on their site
- Read the two-star and three-star reviews specifically - that is where the real pattern is
- Confirm each has a physical street address you can find on a map
- Confirm the company has traded under the same name for several years
- Check whether they employ crews or subcontract, and ask either way
- Look for local, not just national, presence - warranty service depends on it
- Remove anyone who knocked on your door uninvited after a storm
- Remove anyone whose only address is a P.O. box
- Confirm they actually install the material you want
IKO’s first advice on this is blunt and correct: ask for a permanent business address, not a P.O. box. Everything else in the process depends on the company being findable in three years when you need warranty work.
If you’d rather not do the sourcing yourself, HomeMatchup screens roofers before they reach your shortlist - see how we verify roofers.
Stage 2: Verify - before you let anyone quote
This stage is boring and it is the whole point. Verification is what separates a hiring process from a shopping trip.
Licensing
- Look up your state’s contractor licensing board (NASCLA maintains the state-by-state directory)
- Confirm what your state actually requires for roofing - rules differ, and some states regulate at county or city level
- Get the license number from the contractor, in writing
- Verify that number against the board’s own records, not a screenshot
- Check the license status: active, expired, or suspended
- Check whether the name on the license matches the company you are hiring
- Check the board’s complaint or disciplinary history if published
Insurance
- Ask for a certificate of general liability insurance
- Ask for a certificate of workers’ compensation
- Check the coverage amounts, not just that a certificate exists
- Check the policy dates cover your project window
- Ask that the certificate be sent directly from their insurance agent
- Confirm whether subcontractors are covered under the same policies
- Ask whether they are bonded
Why this box matters more in roofing than in most trades: BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data for 2024 puts the roofer fatal injury rate at 48.7 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers - the third-highest of any U.S. civilian occupation and roughly fifteen times the all-occupations rate of 3.3, as analyzed by The Roofing Brief. Around 84% of roofer deaths in 2023 were falls, slips and trips. An uninjured crew is the likely outcome. An uninsured crew is an exposure you own.
Business standing
- Confirm the legal entity name matches what is on the estimate
- Check for any manufacturer certifications and at what level
- Ask how long the current crew leads have worked there
- Ask for three references
- Call at least one, and ask for a job that is three or more years old
Stage 3: Ask every candidate the same questions
The point of asking identically is that the answers become comparable. Read this list out. Write the answers down.
Business questions
- What is your full legal business name and physical address?
- What is your license number and which board issued it?
- What insurance do you carry and at what limits?
- Are you bonded?
- How long have you been in business under this name?
- Do you use your own crews or subcontractors?
- Who will be my on-site supervisor and what is their number?
- Are you certified by any manufacturer, and at what level?
Technical questions - the ones that reveal an installer
- Will you tear off or overlay, and why?
- Will you inspect the decking, and what is your price per replacement sheet?
- What underlayment do you use, and where does ice-and-water shield go?
- How many nails per shingle do you use, and where do they land?
- What valley installation method do you use?
- Will all flashing be new, or reused?
- How far will shingles overhang the drip edge?
- How will you seal pipe boots?
- How will you handle intake and exhaust ventilation?
- What is your cold-weather or hot-weather installation practice?
Process questions
- Who pulls the permit?
- What are your start and stop times on site?
- How will you protect landscaping, siding, windows and the AC unit?
- Where will the dumpster and material go?
- How do you dry in the roof if the job spans days or rain arrives?
- How are change orders documented and approved?
- What does your cleanup include, and do you run a magnet sweep?
- What is your payment schedule and which methods do you accept?
IKO’s list runs to 22 questions covering exactly this territory - valley method, nails per shingle, ridge cap, pipe boot sealing, cold-weather practice. The reason to ask them is not that you’ll independently judge the answer. It’s that a salesperson deflects and an installer answers immediately.
Judge the interaction, too
- Did they get on the roof or measure it properly?
- Did they inspect the attic?
- Did they welcome the questions or get impatient?
- Did they explain a trade-off honestly rather than selling one option?
- Did they show up when they said they would?
Stage 4: Compare bids that price the same job
- Confirm all three bids are itemized, not lump-sum
- Confirm all three quote tear-off, not overlay (or all three quote overlay)
- Confirm all three name the same shingle line and grade
- Confirm all three include new flashing
- Confirm all three include ventilation
- Confirm all three state a decking price per sheet
- Confirm all three include permit and disposal
- Line up the three warranty offerings side by side
- Note the labor share - This Old House puts labor at roughly 60% of a shingle job
- Sanity-check the total against a national range: NerdWallet’s average is about $9,500, with roughly $8,000-$22,000 typical for a 2,000 sq ft roof
- Ask the low bidder what is different about their scope
- Ask the high bidder what you are getting for the premium
A bid that is dramatically low is not usually a bargain - it is usually a smaller job. Reused flashing, felt instead of synthetic underlayment, no ventilation, an overlay instead of a tear-off, or a crew without workers’ comp are all ways to make a number smaller without making a roof better. Our budget vs. premium roof guide covers which upgrades pay and which don’t.
Stage 5: Red flags - walk away boxes
Tick any of these and slow the process down. Tick two and stop.
- Knocked on your door uninvited, especially after a storm
- Pressure to sign today, or a price that expires this afternoon
- Refuses to provide a license number
- Cannot produce insurance certificates from an agent
- Wants a large deposit, in cash
- Offers to “cover” or “waive” your insurance deductible
- Offers a price only if you sign before getting other bids
- Has no physical address you can visit
- Unmarked truck with a magnetic sign
- Verbal promises they will not put in the contract
- Asks you to sign an “authorization to inspect” that is actually a contract
- Never mentioned your right to cancel on an in-home sale
- Wants to start before the permit is issued
- Estimate is a single number on a business card
On the cancellation point specifically: under the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule, a sale of $25 or more made at your home rather than at the seller’s normal place of business carries a three-business-day right to cancel, and the seller is required to disclose it and provide cancellation forms at the time of sale. A contractor who signed you on the porch and skipped that disclosure has told you something.
More on the patterns in how to spot a roofing scam.
Stage 6: Negotiate terms, then sign
Once you’ve chosen, the remaining leverage is in the terms - not the headline price.
- Payment schedule tied to milestones, not calendar dates
- Final payment released only after your own walk-through
- Deposit sized to material ordering, paid by traceable method
- Decking price per sheet fixed in writing
- Change orders require your signature before work proceeds
- Start date and completion window stated, with weather-delay terms
- Permit responsibility named
- Manufacturer warranty named, with registration responsibility assigned
- Workmanship warranty document attached, with its term and transferability
- Property protection and cleanup, including magnet sweep, written in
- Lien waiver promised at final payment
- Your cancellation rights disclosed on the document
Then move to the roof replacement checklist for the prep, install and close-out stages, and read the warranties guide before you accept whichever coverage you’re offered.
Hiring in the two situations that go wrong most
Most bad roofing hires happen under one of two conditions. Both compress the decision, which is exactly what the checklist above is designed to resist.
After a storm. Damage is widespread, every local crew is booked, and out-of-area companies arrive to fill the gap. Some are legitimate. Many are not, and the pattern is consistent: door-knocking, urgency, a free inspection that produces damage nobody else found, an offer to handle your insurance claim, and a request to sign an “authorization” on the spot.
- Contact your insurer before any contractor
- Photograph everything before anyone gets on the roof
- Refuse to let an uninvited caller inspect your roof
- Never sign anything described as “just an authorization to inspect”
- Verify the company’s local physical address, not just a local phone number
- Check how long the license has existed, not just that one exists
- Wait for at least one local bid even if it takes two weeks - a tarp costs far less than a bad roof
During an active leak. Water is coming in and every hour feels expensive. It isn’t. A properly installed tarp buys you days or weeks.
- Get emergency mitigation - a tarp - as a separate, small transaction
- Do not let the emergency vendor convert the visit into a signed replacement contract
- Take the time to run the full checklist afterward
- Document the interior damage before anything is repaired
Both situations share a signature: someone else is setting your timeline. That, on its own, is the flag.
What to do with the answers you collect
Three sets of answers to identical questions is a dataset, not a pile of paper. Use it.
- Build a one-page comparison grid: price, scope differences, warranty, license status, insurance, references, responsiveness
- Mark any answer that was vague rather than specific - vagueness clusters
- Note who volunteered a trade-off honestly, unprompted
- Note who inspected the attic, not just the roof
- Note who measured rather than estimated
- Note who quoted ventilation without being asked twice
- Discard price as a tiebreaker until every other column is filled in
The contractor who wins on that grid is not always the cheapest and is rarely the most polished. It is usually the one whose answers were specific, whose paperwork checked out, and whose references described a job that went the way it was supposed to.
The three questions that tell you the most
If you only have five minutes with a contractor, ask these.
“What is your price per sheet for decking replacement?” A real installer answers instantly, because they price it on every job. A vague answer means you’ll be negotiating with your roof already open.
“Will all the flashing be new?” Most leaks on a re-roofed house start at flashing and penetrations, not in the open field of shingles. Reused flashing is the quietest way to shave a bid.
“What ventilation are you quoting, intake and exhaust?” Ventilation is invisible from the curb, easy to omit, and a ridge vent without balanced soffit intake does very little. See the ventilation guide.
What choosing badly actually costs
The failure modes are predictable. An uninsured crew turns a workplace injury into your liability. A contractor without a real address disappears before year three of a workmanship warranty. A bid that skipped ventilation cooks your shingles and shortens the roof’s life without ever leaking. A cash deposit to a storm-chaser buys nothing at all.
None of these show up on installation day. They show up in year two, five or eight - which is exactly why the verification stage is worth an evening of your time.
Your next step
Do stage 2 before stage 3. Verification takes about thirty minutes per contractor and it removes the candidates who would have cost you the most.
- Today: find your state’s contractor licensing board and learn what roofing actually requires where you live
- This week: shortlist three and request certificates directly from their insurance agents
- At every appointment: read the stage 3 questions aloud and write the answers down
When you want the vetting done for you, get a free estimate - HomeMatchup matches you with licensed, insured, screened local roofers who quote in writing, and you compare.
