Texas Does Not License Roofers. Vet Yours Anyway.

The electrician who wires your panel carries a state license. So does the plumber under your sink. The crew tearing the roof off over your family's heads? Texas asks nothing of them. No exam, no registration, no state record to look up. Roofing here is vetted by homeowners or it is not vetted at all, and this guide is the substitute the state never built.

What the gap actually means

Anyone with a ladder, a truck, and magnetic door signs can be a roofing company by lunchtime. Most of the people working Georgetown roofs are skilled and honest anyway. But every big hail week pulls a wave of out of town operators up and down I-35, and nothing separates them from the good companies except the questions you ask. There is no license to check, so you check everything else.

Verify insurance where it cannot be faked

Proof of general liability insurance is the closest thing roofing has to a credential, and a photocopied certificate is not proof. Papers get borrowed, expired, and edited. Ask for a certificate of insurance sent to you directly from the roofer's insurance agent, with your name listed as certificate holder. Any established company has done this dance dozens of times; hesitation is your answer.

While you have the agent's attention, confirm the policy dates and coverage amounts, then ask the roofer one more question: what happens if a crew member gets hurt on my property? You want a specific insurance answer delivered without flinching, because in Texas the wrong answer can put that injury uncomfortably close to your homeowner's policy.

Test the local footprint

A workmanship warranty is a promise to still exist, so probe for permanence. You are listening for a street address in or near Georgetown you could drive to, not a PO box or a unit number that maps to a mail store. Ask which local supplier they buy from. Ask for addresses of roofs they installed in town three or more years ago, and actually drive past one. A company with years of local roofs overhead answers all of this easily, and a storm chaser answers none of it, because the model is to work the wave after a hailstorm and be two states away before the first callback.

The deductible tripwire

Here is the fastest character test in Texas roofing. Since 2019, state law prohibits contractors from waiving, absorbing, or rebating an insurance deductible, and insurers can require proof you paid yours. Yet after every storm, someone on a porch still pitches the free roof where they "handle" the deductible.

Decode that pitch. A roofer offering to eat your deductible is proposing to break a law you would both be standing inside, usually by inflating the claim to cover the difference. Whatever else that company tells you, you now know how it treats rules when money is involved. Thank them for the demonstration and cross them off.

Manufacturer credentials, decoded

Shingle manufacturers run installer programs that require training, insurance, and a track record, and credentialed installers can offer the maker's stronger warranty tiers. This is not a license, and plenty of fine roofers skip the programs. But it is a third party with a reputation attaching its name to a contractor, which makes it one of the few external signals available here. If a roofer claims a credential, verify it through the manufacturer's own locator rather than the logo on the truck.

Paper that does the protecting

Four documents carry the relationship. A written scope detailed enough to read line by line. A payment schedule with a modest deposit and the meaningful balance due at completion, never half up front. A workmanship warranty in writing, with a term and a phone number. And at final payment, a lien waiver: Texas lets unpaid suppliers and subcontractors file a lien against your home even when you paid the roofer in full, and the waiver is your receipt that everyone downstream got their money. Companies that handle these papers smoothly do this for a living. Companies that improvise them do not.

References with the right vintage

Anyone can produce three happy phone numbers from last month. Ask instead for two customers from two or three years ago, because roofs and warranties reveal themselves across seasons, then one recent job for a read on current crews. Three questions cover it: did it leak, did they come back when called, and would you hire them again at full price.

None of this takes long. An hour of checking, in a county where a roof is five figures and storms come every spring, is the best hourly rate in home ownership. The printable vetting checklist condenses it to one page, and when you want pre screened candidates to start from, request estimates and run every name through the same gauntlet anyway.