Insurance roofing jobs rarely close at the carrier's first number. Rotted decking, a second layer, code-required drip edge and steep-pitch labor all surface at tear-off, and each one becomes a supplement request. Most roofers track these in email threads and a memory of who owes what. The books show one job total, so nobody can say how much of the requested money arrived, or how much work the crew did on faith.
A Quarter of Supplements
All figures below are illustrative. A roofer completes 12 insurance reroofs in a quarter and files supplements on nine of them. The log, tallied at quarter end:
| Status | Amount | Share of requested |
|---|---|---|
| Requested | $38,400 | 100% |
| Approved | $27,900 | 73% |
| Paid to date | $21,300 | 55% |
| Approved, not yet paid | $6,600 | 17% |
| Denied or cut | $10,500 | 27% |
Suppose the crew completed the work behind the denied $10,500 before the carrier answered. At a 30% margin on those items, the roofer absorbed about $7,350 of direct cost. That is real money, and no standard P&L line shows it. It just thins the margin on nine jobs a little at a time.
The $6,600 approved but unpaid is a separate problem. It is cash the roofer has earned and cannot spend. If the typical job takes 45 days to close, a balance that has sat for 60 days after approval needs a call this week, not at quarter end. Without a log, the call never gets made because nobody can see the balance.
Three Statuses, One Log
A request is a hope, an approval is a receivable and a payment is cash. Keep each in its own column, one row per supplement:
- Requested. Job, line item, dollar amount, date sent and who at the carrier received it.
- Approved. The amount the carrier agreed to, the approval date and the reason for any cut.
- Paid. Check date and amount, matched to the job in your deposit records.
Only the approved amount belongs in your receivables. Booking the requested amount overstates revenue and hides the cost of denials. Ask your CPA how and when approved supplements should be recognized in your books.
Four Tracking Rules
- Log it the day you send it. A supplement entered three weeks later is entered from memory, and the photos are already filed away.
- Set a work-before-approval limit. For example, a crew lead may proceed on up to $500 of unapproved scope. Anything larger waits for a written approval.
- Record a reason for every denial. Use short codes such as no photos, outside scope or pricing dispute. After a quarter, the most common code tells you where to improve documentation.
- Age approved-but-unpaid balances weekly. Treat them like any other receivable in your aging report. Carrier payments often go through the homeowner or a mortgage company, so follow-up has to name who holds the check.
How to Start This Week
- Build the log. One spreadsheet with a row per supplement and the columns above. Pull the last 90 days of insurance jobs from your email and fill it in.
- Add a Supplements tag in QuickBooks. Tag each approved supplement to its job so job profit includes it and the original contract stays visible. See insurance claim accounting for the full workflow.
- Compute three ratios. Approval rate (approved divided by requested), collection rate (paid divided by approved) and cost absorbed on denials. The example above gives 73%, 76% and $7,350.
- Review on a fixed day. Fifteen minutes each Monday keeps stale requests from turning into write-offs.
If your approval rate sits below 70%, the problem is usually paperwork, not the carrier. Tighten photo capture and line-item pricing before you hire another estimator.
Common Mistakes
- Treating the first approval as final. A partial approval is two items: the approved amount and a live dispute on the rest.
- Mixing supplements into the original contract amount. You lose the ability to see how much of the job's margin depended on the carrier's later answers.
- Never writing off. A denied supplement carried for a year is a stale balance. Write it off with a note and move the cost lesson to your next estimate.