Every quarter, Verisk — the company behind Xactimate, XactAnalysis and the price lists your adjuster’s estimate is built on — publishes a report on what happened to claims, costs and labor across North America. Almost nobody in roofing reads it. That’s a mistake, because the same company that writes the number on the carrier’s estimate is also telling you, in writing, how far that number tends to be off.
We read the January–March 2026 edition so you don’t have to. Here are the seven numbers that matter for a roofer working insurance jobs this year, and what to do with each one.
1. Claim volume is down 8.9% — and hail is down 23.6%
U.S. claim assignments fell 8.9% year-over-year in Q1 and came in 13% below the five-year average. That’s five straight quarters of decline. Hail claims dropped 23.6%, wind claims dropped 22.6%, and Verisk’s storm data shows a 59% decrease in roofs hit by 2-inch-plus hail compared with Q1 2025.
The regional picture is lopsided. Texas still led the country in claim volume. Florida fell 65.7% (last year’s Q1 was padded with late-reported Hurricane Milton claims). South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina dropped 40–52%. Meanwhile, a single March 13–14 wind event put 1.5 million Ohio homes under 60 mph gusts, and a March 11–13 wind event across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho pushed those states up 800%-plus year-over-year.
What it means for you: In most markets there are fewer insurance roofs to fight over in 2026 than there were in 2025. When the pie shrinks, the money has to come from doing each job right, not from doing more of them. A roofer who closed 100 claims at the adjuster’s first number last year and closes 85 this year is in trouble. A roofer who closes 85 and supplements every one of them is fine. The math on that is in number 3.
2. Average claim severity is $16,079 — headed for $17,687
Verisk’s average U.S. replacement cost value for a Q1 2026 claim currently sits at $16,079. That sounds like a drop from 2025, and technically it is, but 2025’s average was inflated by the Palisades and Eaton fires. Strip those out and 2025 was $18,294, which puts 2026 only 3.4% below the five-year average.
More important is what Verisk expects to happen next: the figure is “subject to data maturity,” and they project it will climb to roughly $17,687, which would make 2026 the second-highest severity year on record.
What it means for you: The average insured loss is not getting cheaper. Carriers are paying more per claim than they did in 2022, 2023 or 2024, and they know it. Expect first estimates to be written tight, and expect desk adjusters to have more time to scrutinize what you send in (Verisk describes the lower volume as giving carriers “operational breathing room”). Documentation that was good enough in a 2024 hail surge may not be good enough now. If your inspection photos are thin, start with the photo set carriers actually approve.
3. Claims “mature” 10% after the first estimate — that’s the supplement gap, in Verisk’s own words
This is the number to remember. Q4 2025 severity was first reported at $17,167. Three months later, after the complex claims closed, it had “matured” to $18,910 — a 10.15% increase over the initial figure. Verisk uses a “typical 10% maturation” to forecast where Q1 2026 will land.
Read that again from a roofer’s side of the table. The company that publishes the price list is telling the insurance industry that the average claim’s final value runs about 10% above where it starts. Some of that is complex claims closing late. A lot of it is supplements: the drip edge, starter, ice-and-water, steep charges, code items and overhead and profit that weren’t on the first estimate and got added because someone asked.
What it means for you: A 10% industry-wide maturation is the floor, not the ceiling. On our own client accounts, the gap between the carrier’s first estimate and the final approved scope has run well above that on roofing-specific claims, because roofs are where the first estimate misses most. If your jobs are closing at the adjuster’s opening number, you’re not just leaving money on the table, you’re closing below the industry average. Every carrier already budgets for the 10%. You should be collecting it.
4. Labor is up 4.14% year-over-year and materials are up 2.93%
Verisk’s labor composite index rose 4.14% in the U.S. from March 2025 to March 2026; the materials composite rose 2.93%. Combined labor and materials rose 1.21% in Q1 alone, and January was the big month (0.74% in one price list update). Roofer labor didn’t make Verisk’s top-ten list of fastest-rising U.S. trades for the quarter, so it rose less than 1% (the only major trade that actually declined was Canadian roofer labor, at -0.22%), and roofing material moved just 0.03%.
What it means for you: The price list date on the carrier’s estimate matters more than most roofers realize. Xactimate price lists update monthly, and January 2026 carried the largest single jump of the quarter. A claim inspected in December, estimated on the December list, and built in February is already priced below current cost before a single line item is argued. When you write the supplement, check the price list date in the header of the carrier’s estimate. If it’s stale, request that the revised estimate be run on the current list. That’s not a negotiation tactic; it’s Verisk’s own pricing.
5. Sheathing lumber is down 9.55% — don’t let that turn into a skipped decking line
Lumber was the one bright spot for material costs. Sheathing (OSB and plywood) fell 9.55% year-over-year in the U.S. on persistent oversupply from Southeast and Midwest mills, while dimensional lumber rose slightly (0.97%). Verisk attributes the sheathing drop to slower new-home construction leaving mills with more panel capacity than builders can absorb.
What it means for you: Cheaper sheathing is good news for your material cost on a decking job and bad news for one habit: adjusters and roofers alike treating decking replacement as a rounding error. It isn’t. Rotted or delaminated decking discovered at tear-off is a legitimate, code-supported line item whatever the panel price is, and the labor to replace it hasn’t gotten cheaper (see number 4). Photograph the deck, count the sheets, and write it. The lower material price just means the line item will draw less pushback.
6. Fuel spiked 42.7% in one quarter — and labor rates lag fuel
Fuel prices in the U.S. rose 42.7% during Q1, with almost all of it landing in March and tied to the Iran conflict and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Verisk is explicit that fuel is a leading indicator: material prices react quickly, and “contractor billable labor typically lags.” Crew transportation, equipment mobilization and daily operating costs get baked into labor rates over the following months, not the following week.
What it means for you: The Q1 price lists don’t reflect the March fuel spike yet. If fuel stays elevated, expect labor line items to move in the Q2 and Q3 lists. That’s another reason the price list date matters: a job that drags from spring into summer may be worth re-running on the newer list before you close it out. It’s also a reason to make sure your own retail pricing isn’t frozen at 2025 numbers while your fuel bill isn’t.
7. Reconstruction costs are forecast to rise another 1.8% by October
Verisk’s 360Value Market Expectations Index projects U.S. residential reconstruction costs will rise roughly 1.8% from April to October 2026, on top of the 3.1% residential increase over the past twelve months. Repair and remodeling costs specifically rose 2.54% year-over-year, and labor is now almost two-thirds of a typical repair job’s cost.
Meanwhile, the housing market is stuck: the builder confidence index has been below the neutral 50 line for 23 straight months, mortgage rates are near 6.5%, and two-thirds of builders are offering sales incentives. Verisk’s read is that homeowners who can’t afford to move are going to repair and improve what they have instead.
What it means for you: The demand is shifting toward exactly the work roofers do, and the cost of doing it keeps inching up. Neither of those is a reason to leave the first estimate alone. Verisk is telling carriers costs will be higher in October than in April; when the carrier’s adjuster writes a roof in April at April pricing and you build it in August, the supplement is where you close that gap.
Update: Verisk’s 2026 U.S. Roof Report (May 29, 2026)
Two months after the quarterly report, Verisk published its annual roof-only study, and the numbers sharpen the picture above. The average residential roof replacement claim was $17,631 in 2025, up 33% on the 2021–2024 average, and the average repair was $4,699, up 25%, even though overall claim volume fell about 20% and total roof RCV slipped from a $24.4 billion average to $23 billion. Fewer roofs got claimed; each one cost a lot more.
Three roof-specific findings matter for supplements. First, roofing is roughly 30% of every line item on property estimates, which is why the “maturation gap” in section 3 lands so heavily on roofers. Second, roofs in moderate-to-poor condition carry about 60% higher loss costs than roofs in good condition, and 38% of U.S. homes are in that bucket; expect carriers to lean on aerial condition scoring to price and to argue “wear and tear,” and document the pre-storm condition accordingly. Third, hail is spreading: sixteen states saw severe hail hit more than 20% of their roofs in 2025, up from twelve in 2024, led by Kansas (51.8%), Nebraska (47.1%), Oklahoma (44.4%), South Dakota (44.4%) and Arkansas (41.9%). In hail states, 57% of roofs are nine years old or older, versus 38% elsewhere, which is the age range where the repair-versus-replace fight happens.
The report’s regional roof-age data is worth keeping on hand for state-specific claims. In the South, 28% of roofs are under five years old and only 4% are over thirty; in the Midwest it is 21% and 17%; in the Northeast 14% and 18%; in the West 20% and 11%. A Midwest hail claim on a 20-year-old roof is the statistical norm, not the exception, and a supplement that anticipates the age argument (permit date, installation invoice, dated storm data, brittleness test) starts ahead. Our state pages carry the local code and claim-handling rules that turn those numbers into line items. (Source: Verisk, “2026 U.S. Roof Report: The State of America’s Roofs,” press release May 29, 2026; Claims Journal and Insurance Journal coverage, June 1, 2026.)
Update: Q2 2026 reconstruction costs (September 14, 2026)
Verisk’s Q2 360Value reconstruction-cost analysis, out in May, gives number 7 a second data point. Total U.S. reconstruction costs (materials plus retail labor) rose 3.6% year over year, with residential up 3.2%. Growth is slowing, at 0.8% quarter over quarter, but it hasn’t stopped. In roofing specifically, Verisk’s 2025 numbers show material costs rose 1.48% against a 0.79% rise in roofer labor, and the national average hides wild regional swings: roofing materials climbed 10.37% in Nevada and fell 15.80% in New Hampshire in the same year.
What it means for you: the price-list-date advice in number 4 gets sharper. A national index says nothing about what the carrier’s list pays in your county this month. Check the list date on every estimate header, and if the job has slipped a quarter, ask for the revised estimate on the current list. Verisk’s next Quarterly Property Report (April–June) is due around October; we’ll update this post when it lands. (Source: Verisk 360Value Quarterly Reconstruction Cost Analysis, Q2 2026, via Claims Journal, May 14, 2026; Verisk 2026 U.S. Roof Report, May 29, 2026.)
The one-paragraph version
Fewer claims, higher value per claim, a documented 10% gap between where claims start and where they finish, monthly price lists that moved sharply in January and will likely move again once fuel works through labor rates. Every one of those points in the same direction: in 2026 the roofer who wins is the one who treats the carrier’s first estimate as an opening offer and has a process for turning it into a final one.
If that process is your project manager between inspections, it’s probably costing you more than it saves. If you’d rather hand it off, that’s what we do.
Ready to hand off your supplements? Need a supplemental estimating service instead of another hire? See how EOD’s roofing supplement services work, check our pricing (10% of the increase — no increase, no fee), or get in touch.
Source: Verisk Property and Restoration Solutions, Quarterly Property Report, January–March 2026. Figures are national averages and will vary by market. Estimate on Demand writes and negotiates roofing supplements on behalf of roofing contractors; we are not public adjusters, do not represent homeowners, and do not promise any specific increase on any claim.
