Senate Bill 155 Creates $100 Million Hail Roof Grant Fund

“Businesses incur expenses for everything that they do.”

That’s Rep. Anthony Hartsook’s blunt assessment of Senate Bill 155, and it’s the only thing standing between Western Slope homeowners and a $100 million pot of cash for roof upgrades.

Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law on June 4, capping off a legislative session that left some of the state’s highest-cost-of-living areas with a tangible, if controversial, tool to fight back against rising insurance premiums. The bill creates a grant program to help homeowners pay for hail-resistant roofs. The funding? A 0.5% fee on every homeowners insurance plan written in the state.

Lawmakers project this fee will generate up to $100 million in the program’s first five years. That is a significant chunk of change for a state where homeowners insurance has become a financial black hole. Colorado ranks as the sixth-costliest state for homeowners insurance. Average premiums have more than doubled between 2018 and 2023. Hail is the culprit, accounting for 26% to 54% of a premium’s costs, according to the Colorado Division of Insurance.

Let’s do the math on the local impact. If you’re a homeowner in Delta, Montrose, or Pitkin County, you’re already paying a premium for the privilege of living in a hail-prone zone. This bill attempts to offset that pain by subsidizing the very thing that causes it: roof damage.

The political journey to June 4 was rocky. House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a main sponsor, tried last year to pass a similar bill. It died in committee. Three Democrats joined Republicans to kill it. One of those Democrats was Sen. Kyle Mullica of Thornton. He had a specific gripe: the previous bill’s funding mechanism would have increased costs for homeowners. The old proposal charged a 1% fee but allowed insurers to pass that cost onto policyholders as a surcharge.

This year’s bill changed the rules. It prevents insurers from passing the fee onto policyholders. It also dropped the wildfire reinsurance program, opting instead to commission a study on whether such a program makes sense later.

Mullica was a lead sponsor this time around. “What changed for me is that it’s not a surcharge,” he said. “The people of Colorado are going to come out on top here.”

But Hartsook, the Republican from Parker, wasn’t buying the “no surcharge” promise. “Businesses incur expenses for everything that they do,” he said. In practice, that means insurers will likely bake the 0.5% fee into their overall operating costs and adjust premiums accordingly. The fee is on the plan, not explicitly on the customer, but the customer pays the bill either way.

The result is a system where every homeowner in Colorado pays a small levy to fund roof upgrades for other homeowners. It’s a redistribution of risk, funded by a fee that might just get passed down the line. For locals, the immediate benefit is potential access to grants for metal or impact-resistant roofs. The long-term cost is a fee that could nudge premiums up across the board, regardless of whether your roof ever sees a single hailstone.

The bill also includes protections for mobile home park residents, another priority for Western Slope lawmakers. But the headline is the hail funding. It’s a direct response to climate change, as McCluskie noted, creating “increasingly damaging hailstorms.”

The bottom line: You might get a grant to fix your roof. You might also see your insurance bill tick up slightly as insurers adjust to the new fee structure. The state is betting that the grants will save more money in reduced claims than the fees cost in administration. It’s a gamble. But for now, the money is there.