Supplementing a Roof Claim: Scope-and-Pricing, Coverage-and-Indemnity, and the Licensing Line Between Them

Introduction

When a roof claim is underpaid, two documents may follow, and both are commonly called supplements. One is written by the contractor: on opening the roof we found conditions the original scope omitted, and here is what the code and the manufacturer's instructions require us to do about them, at this price. The other is advanced on the insured's behalf: the amount tendered does not discharge what this policy owes. They rest on different authorities, and one of them requires a licence the other does not confer.

The roles of the roofing contractor, the company adjuster and the public adjuster, and the statutes that separate them, are treated at length in an earlier article from this office ^[1]; that treatment is assumed here rather than repeated. This paper takes up the narrower question it did not reach: what happens where both trades reach for the same word, and how a contractor keeps a supplement inside the contractor's own lane while writing it. The purpose is not to narrow what a contractor may document — that function is wide, substantive and protected — but to show where its logic stops being about the building and starts being about the policy. North Carolina is the worked example throughout.

The Statutory Boundary a Supplement Runs Into

The boundary is a definition, not an exemption

Article 33A of Chapter 58 of the North Carolina General Statutes governs public adjuster licensing and limits "their licensure to assisting insureds in first-party claims" ^[2]. Section 58-33A-5(7) defines a "public adjuster" as any person who, for compensation or any other thing of value on behalf of the insured, does any of the following — the first limb being the one a supplement can run into:

a. Acts or aids, solely in relation to first-party claims arising under insurance contracts that insure the real or personal property of the insured, on behalf of an insured in negotiating for, or effecting the settlement of, a claim for loss or damage covered by an insurance contract. ^[3]

Subdivision (b) reaches advertising and self-presentation as a public adjuster; subdivision (c) reaches investigating losses or advising an insured for another person in the adjusting business ^[3]. Section 58-33A-10(a) bars acting as one without a licence ^[5], and North Carolina, having adopted the NAIC model act, licenses individuals and entities alike ^[6]. None of it describes the carrier's own adjuster, who "investigates or reports to his principal" under § 58-33-10(2) ^[4] and to whom a supplement normally goes.

The definition is functional rather than titular, and it is gated throughout on acting for compensation on behalf of the insured — the hinge a supplement turns on.

Why § 58-33A-10(d)(3) is not a contractor safe harbour

Among the exemptions in § 58-33A-10(d) is:

(3) A person employed only for the purpose of obtaining facts surrounding a loss or furnishing technical assistance to a licensed public adjuster, including photographers, estimators, private investigators, engineers, and handwriting experts. ^[5]

Because it names estimators, (d)(3) is frequently offered as the provision that lets a contractor write supplements. It is narrower than it appears: the qualifier is "employed only for the purpose of" fact-gathering or technical assistance, and a contractor engaged to replace a roof is employed to perform the work. It fits the independent estimator or the engineer retained solely to produce findings, not a repair contract.

The correct analysis is the reverse of the one usually offered. A contractor writing a supplement about the building is not exempt from the definition; the contractor is outside it in the first place, because nothing in a scope-and-pricing document is done on the insured's behalf in negotiating or effecting settlement. The protection lies in never satisfying § 58-33A-5(7), not in sheltering under (d).

The trigger is the fee structure, not only the conduct

Section 58-33A-60(b) provides that "[a] person shall not accept a commission, service fee, or other valuable consideration for investigating or settling claims in this State if that person is required to be licensed under this Article and is not so licensed" ^[7]. It attaches to the fee arrangement, not conduct alone. A contractor paid to build a roof, at a price for building the roof, stands differently from one paid a percentage of what the carrier pays — even where both submitted the same document.

The Contractor's Supplement: A Scope-and-Pricing Exercise

This is an argument about requirement, and its authorities are licensing law, the building code and the manufacturer's installation instructions — not the policy.

The source of the contractor's authority

Performing the work is its own licensing question: a person undertaking construction costing "forty thousand dollars ($40,000) or more" is a general contractor and must be licensed under Article 1 of Chapter 87 ^[8] — a licence that does not authorise public adjusting, just as a public adjuster licence does not authorise construction. The State Building Code is adopted as a rule under G.S. 143-138 ^[9], and because the 2024 Code's effective date has been repeatedly deferred, the 2018 Code remained in effect as of the State Fire Marshal's advisory of 31 March 2025 ^[10] — so a supplement asserting a code requirement should say which edition it relies on.

Two Residential Code provisions then carry most of the load. R904.1 requires roof assemblies to be applied in accordance with the chapter and the manufacturer's installation instructions, and R905.1 imposes the same requirement on roof coverings ^[11]. Together they convert those instructions from a commercial recommendation into an enforceable minimum — the most useful single fact in supplement drafting, and the source of the four categories below. A contracting formality sits alongside them: since 1 October 2024, under G.S. 14-401.13(b1), residential roof replacement or repair contracts carry a five-business-day cancellation period following a claim denial, during which the seller "shall not begin work or collect any payment" ^{[16, 17]}.

Code-driven items

Where the code itself states a requirement, the supplement cites the section and the edition. R908.3, as amended in North Carolina effective 1 January 2022, provides that roof replacement "shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck and replacement of up to 15% of the total existing roof deck," and that replacement of up to 15% of the total roof deck "shall not be considered structural work" ^[12].

That is a scope rule twice over: it fixes tear-off to the deck as part of what "roof replacement" means, and it places a defined quantity of deck replacement inside the reroofing scope rather than in the separate category of structural work. Neither limb says anything about who pays; both say what the job includes.

Manufacturer-required components

Most of what appears on a well-drafted supplement is not in the code text at all. It is in the manufacturer's installation instructions, which R904.1 and R905.1 make enforceable ^[11]. Where an instruction specifies a fastening pattern, a starter course, an underlayment, a valley treatment or a ventilation configuration as a condition of the assembly, a contractor who includes it is stating what compliant installation requires — not a preference.

North Carolina illustrates why the instruction, rather than a general code memory, must be the citation. The State amended R905.2.8.5 to delete the standalone drip edge mandate: drip edge is "[n]ot required unless required by the roof covering manufacturer installation instructions" ^[12]. A supplement asserting drip edge as a bare North Carolina code requirement cites something the State removed; one attaching the instruction requiring it cites the authority that operates.

Access and safety

Some required items exist because of how the work must lawfully be performed rather than because of what is installed. Under 29 C.F.R. § 1926.501(b)(11), each employee on a steep roof with unprotected sides and edges six feet or more above a lower level "shall be protected from falling by guardrail systems with toeboards, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems" ^[13]. That duty attaches to the employer performing the work; it is not created or removed by an estimate. A scope omitting lawful access and fall protection has not described a cheaper method of repair, it has described a method the performing contractor may not lawfully use — and because items like anchorage installation and removal correspond to no installed square footage, a quantities-only takeoff drops them silently. The regulatory detail is in the companion paper on fall protection.

Concealed damage on opening up

The category generating the most supplements is the one no pre-tear-off inspection can eliminate. Removal to the deck exposes what was not visible: delaminated sheathing, a failed flashing detail, an unsuitable substrate, previous work that does not meet the instruction now governing the assembly. R908.3's tear-off requirement is what puts the contractor in a position to see it ^{[11, 12]}.

Such a supplement is strongest built in the same order every time: the condition observed, dated and photographed where it was found; the quantity affected, measured; the code section or manufacturer's instruction it triggers; and the price of the added work. Nothing in that sequence requires an opinion about the policy, and the sequence is what makes the document useful to the carrier's adjuster, who has no independent way to see a deck that is now covered.

The drafting test

The four categories share one test, applied to any sentence before it goes out: would this sentence read the same way if there were no insurance policy at all?

That the deck was delaminated over 240 square feet, that the instruction requires a sound substrate, and that replacing it costs a stated amount, passes: it would be equally true on an uninsured job. That the carrier's estimate is short, that the item is covered, that the policy owes replacement cost rather than actual cash value, or that the settlement should be reopened, fails. Regulator guidance draws the line in the same place: preparing and discussing an estimate is permissible; investigating the claim, negotiating for the customer and advising on coverage are not ^{[14, 15]}.

The Public Adjuster's Exercise: What the Policy Owes to Indemnify It

This is the same file from the licensed side. The argument is about indemnity, and its authorities are the policy and Article 33A.

The licensed lane

A resident public adjuster must pass an examination, submit fingerprints for criminal history checks, and maintain a bond or irrevocable letter of credit of at least $20,000 running in favour of the State, from which persons damaged by the adjuster's erroneous acts may recover ^{[6, 18]}. Every engagement must be in writing, stating the licence number, the services, the loss and the compensation ^[19].

Section 58-33A-80 requires the adjuster to "serve with objectivity and complete loyalty the interest of his or her client alone," bars undisclosed financial interests in the claim, requires disclosure of any interest in or compensation from a construction or repair firm working on the loss, and forbids a contract or power of attorney vesting in the adjuster "the effective authority to choose the persons who shall perform repair work" ^[20]. In a catastrophic incident, compensation is capped at ten percent of the settlement and no fee may be taken beforehand ^[7]. That apparatus makes the function accountable, and its last limb shows the same separation binding the licensed side.

The indemnity question, and what the supplement contributes

The indemnity exercise asks what no scope document answers. Does the policy insure the peril that produced the observed condition? What does its valuation provision measure — replacement cost, actual cash value, and on what schedule does any holdback become payable? What do its conditions require of the insured, and by when? Does the tendered amount discharge the obligation as measured by those terms? Each is a question about a contract of insurance, argued on the insured's behalf, for compensation — § 58-33A-5(7)(a) territory in terms, and the reason the exercise carries the licence, bond and loyalty duty.

The contractor's supplement establishes the technical predicate beneath it: these components are in this condition, this is what the code and the manufacturer require to repair them compliantly, this is the quantity and the price. That predicate is evidence; it is not, by itself, a statement that the policy responds. A disciplined supplement is more useful in that exercise, not less, precisely because it does not editorialise about coverage — one that asserts coverage conclusions invites the reply that its author was not qualified to reach them.

Where the Two Are Conflated

The slide is rarely a decision. It usually happens inside one sentence, in a document that began correctly. "Deck delaminated at the north slope over 240 sq ft; manufacturer's instruction requires a sound substrate; replace and re-deck at $X" is contractor work throughout. Adding "this was clearly missed in your adjuster's estimate and should be paid" changes the speaker: the first asserts a condition and a requirement, the second what is owed, on the homeowner's behalf, by a person compensated in connection with the loss. The physical facts did not change. The authority invoked did.

The same slide occurs where a contractor offers to handle the claim, to review the homeowner's policy, or to work for a share of whatever the carrier pays — and in marketing before any claim exists, because § 58-33A-5(7)(b) makes advertising independently sufficient ^[3]. Three habits keep them apart: address the supplement's reasoning to the building, not the tender; route policy questions to whoever is licensed to answer them; and price the work as work, which keeps the arrangement clear of § 58-33A-60(b) ^[7].

Exposure, and Why the Boundary Protects the Contractor

Under § 58-33A-93, "any person who willfully and knowingly conducts business as a public adjuster in violation of this Article is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor" ^[21]. The § 58-33A-60(b) prohibition on accepting compensation for investigating or settling claims without a licence operates independently of it and reaches the fee itself ^[7].

Separately, G.S. 58-2-161 makes it unlawful to present, with intent to injure, defraud or deceive an insurer or an insurance claimant, a statement known to contain false or misleading information material to a claim — a Class H felony below $100,000 and a Class C felony at or above it ^[22]. That is about accuracy rather than role boundaries, and it binds contractor supplements and adjuster submissions alike.

The exposure is worth stating without alarm: the realistic risk is rarely prosecution, but a regulatory complaint, an uncollectible fee, and a weakened position in any dispute about the contract. The discipline that avoids them is the one that produces a better supplement.

Variation Between States

The NAIC's Public Adjuster Licensing Model Act (#228) supplies the template North Carolina adopted ^[23], and its contractor notice was drafted for jurisdictions to fill in their own definitions ^[14] — but adoption is neither universal nor uniform. Virginia, for example, defines a public adjuster to include one who "prepares, completes or files an insurance claim form for an insured," and advises that a contractor who is also a licensed public adjuster cannot act in both roles as to repairs on the same property ^[15].

Code amendments are equally local: the deck-replacement allowance at R908.3 and the deleted drip edge mandate at R905.2.8.5 ^[12] are North Carolina's, and a supplement written from an unamended model code states both wrongly here. The controlling texts are the licensing statute and the adopted code of the state where the property sits.

Conclusion

Supplementing is two exercises wearing one word. The contractor's supplement is a scope-and-pricing document: its subject is the building, its authorities are the adopted code edition and the manufacturer's instructions that R904.1 and R905.1 make enforceable, and its occasions are code-driven items, manufacturer-required components, access and safety, and concealed damage on opening up. The pursuit of an underpaid claim is a coverage-and-indemnity exercise: its subject is the policy, and it is conducted on an insured's behalf only under a licence, a bond, a written contract and a duty of loyalty to the insured alone. The boundary is drawn by § 58-33A-5(7) and enforced by § 58-33A-10, § 58-33A-60(b) and § 58-33A-93.

Keeping them separate costs the contractor nothing and returns a supplement that is harder to dismiss, a fee structured to be collectible, and a licensing position that is not in issue — and, for the insured, a technical record made by someone qualified to make it alongside a coverage argument advanced by someone licensed to advance it.

References

1. [1]Mantis Claims Group, Contractors, Public Adjusters & Insurance Adjusters in North Carolina, 14 March 2025. https://mantisclaims.com/blog/contractor-vs-public-adjuster-nc (accessed 2026-09-02).
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