The Second Check You Never Went Back For

Module 6 · The Money System · Play 14 of 22

The problem in one breath

The storm job is done. The first check cleared, the homeowner paid their deductible, the crew's three tear-offs down the road — and a chunk of that claim is still parked with the carrier, unpaid, because nobody sent the paperwork to release it. It's money you already earned, sitting there getting colder.

Why it happens

On a storm claim the carrier usually pays in two pieces — a first check up front, and the rest held back until the work is finished and proven.

Play 13 walks that whole map. But the job feels finished the day that first check lands and the deductible comes in — roof's on, money showed up, everybody's onto the next fire. The held-back piece is the one thing in the business with no alarm on it, and nobody owns going back for it. The homeowner who has to receive that check and pass it along has moved on too — the storm's over, their roof is fine, your paperwork is the last thing on their mind. The longer it sits, the easier it is to forget.

The play

You walk your finished storm jobs, find the ones with money still held, and send the same proof package every time until it's released.

Pull every completed insurance job from a window you set. Twelve months, two years — whatever you can stand to dig through. List them one per row and mark which ones still have money held back. Some got paid in full. And some policies pay actual cash value only: nothing was ever held back, so there's no second check to chase. Check the policy type before you start — if it's ACV-only, mark that row released and move on.
Send the same proof package every time. For each held job, send the carrier what closes it out — a final invoice, photos of the finished roof, a certificate of completion. Build it once as a standard packet, so it's the same drill every job.
Put one name on the release step. It falls through the floor because it belongs to nobody. Fix it: one name on it (Play 2) — one person builds and sends the packet the day a storm job wraps, and chases it until the check clears.
Date the follow-up and work it like the collection call. A packet sent is not money collected. Put a date on the calendar to ring the carrier, and treat that call exactly like the collection call in Play 3 — calm, firm, no apology: "The work's done and proven. When does the release check go out?" Some claims have a window to collect it, so don't let it drift.
Brief the homeowner on their part. That check often routes through the homeowner, not straight to you. Once you know the policy is holding a piece, tell them plainly, before the packet goes out: "There's one more check coming to you from your insurance for the rest of the roof. The day it lands, sign it over to us — unless your mortgage company's name is on it too. If it is, tell me and we'll walk you through their steps." That lender detour is Play 15. Script it as a heads-up, not a surprise months later.

Do this this week

Pull your completed-storm-jobs list and find ONE job with money still held back. Just one. Build the proof packet for it, and either send it or put a name and a date on sending it. Under thirty minutes — and it's often the fastest real money you'll find all week, because you already earned it.

The tool

Get the sheet

Or fill it in here — no download →

Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice. Grab it on the phone now — it’ll be waiting on the computer at the shop.

the-depreciation-tracker.xlsx — the depreciation tracker. One row per completed insurance job. You type the total claim (RCV), what you've received so far — carrier checks only, the first one plus any supplements (supplements are Play 08) — and the deductible (the homeowner's share); the sheet works out the depreciation still held (claim − received − deductible). Supplement approved? Raise the total claim by the same dollars you add to received, or the held figure shrinks by the size of the supplement. You enter the date you sent the proof and mark Released? Y/N; the sheet counts the days since sent, flags SEND IT on a held job with no packet out and CHASE on one gone quiet past a day-count you set, and totals the dollars still held. Two rows are filled in as made-up examples. See the sheet notes below.

If your crew is 1099

Mostly nothing to adjust — chasing the carrier and briefing the homeowner is office and owner work, the same whether your crews are W2 or subs. The one link to the field: the finished-roof photos and the completion certificate are easier to get if whoever ran the job hands them in the day he tears down. Ask at close-out either way — that's a paperwork request, not an order on how to work.

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.

M6-14 · The Second Check You Never Went Back For — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/money-system/release-the-depreciation

The sheet notes

How the sheet works — the columns and the formulas

The columns, the formulas behind them, and the judgment calls — so you can rebuild it by hand if you ever need to.

What it does

One row per FINISHED insurance job. You type the total claim (RCV), what you've received so far (carrier checks only — the first one plus any supplements), and the deductible (the homeowner's share). The sheet works out the depreciation still held — the money the carrier is sitting on until the work is proven. You add the date you sent the proof package and mark Released? Y/N, and the sheet counts the days since sent, raises a flag, and totals the dollars still held. Rows 6 and 7 (yellow) are filled in as examples; delete them before you enter your real jobs.

The flag has two states, so you always know the next move:

SEND IT — a held job with no proof package out yet. This is the core miss: money you earned, nobody sent the paperwork.
CHASE — the packet went out but the job's gone quiet past the day-count you set. Time to make the call (Play 3).

How to use it

Add a row for every completed insurance job in your lookback window.
Fill the plain cells: Job / homeowner, Completed (date), Total claim (RCV), Received so far, Deductible. The sheet shows Depreciation still held.
When you send the proof package, put the date in Proof sent. When the money lands, set Released? to Y.
Set your line once, top-right: Follow up after (days) — that's your call, not a rule.
Work anything showing SEND IT or CHASE in the flag column first. Read the box on the right for your running total of held money.

Columns

Column	What it is
A Job / homeowner	Which finished job this row is.
B Completed	The day the job was finished. You type it.
C Total claim (RCV)	The full replacement-cost value of the whole claim. You type it.
D Received so far	Carrier money only: the first check as you deposited it (carriers usually cut it net of the deductible) plus any supplements. Do NOT add the deductible the homeowner paid you — column E already accounts for it. Enter check amounts, not the ACV figure off the paperwork, or the held number comes out wrong by one deductible. You type it.
E Deductible	The homeowner's share of the claim. You type it.
F Depreciation still held	Auto: `RCV − Received − Deductible` — what the carrier still holds.
G Proof sent	The day you sent the release package (invoice, photos, certificate). You type it; leave blank until it goes out.
H Released?	Y / N dropdown — it won't take anything else, so a typo can't drop the row out of the totals. Mark Y the day the money lands.
I Days since sent	Auto: days since Proof sent; blank once released, or if nothing's been sent.
J Flag	Auto: SEND IT (held, no packet out) or CHASE (sent, gone quiet past your day-count).

Box on the right: Follow up after (days) — the one number you set; Jobs still holding, Flagged to act, and $ depreciation still held — a running total of the money you've earned but not yet collected.

Formulas (so you can rebuild it by hand)

Depreciation still held (F6, fill down): =IF($C6="","",$C6-$D6-$E6)
Days since sent (I6, fill down): =IF(AND($H6<>"Y",$G6<>""),TODAY()-$G6,"")
Flag (J6, fill down): =IF(OR($C6="",$H6="Y"),"",IF($G6="","SEND IT",IF(TODAY()-$G6>$M$4,"CHASE","")))
Jobs still holding (box): =COUNTIF($H$6:$H$65,"N")
Flagged to act (box): =COUNTIF($J$6:$J$65,"SEND IT")+COUNTIF($J$6:$J$65,"CHASE")
$ depreciation still held (box): =SUMIF($H$6:$H$65,"N",$F$6:$F$65)

Only IF, AND, OR, COUNTIF, SUMIF, and TODAY are used — no new-Excel-only functions — so it opens and computes in old Excel, Numbers, and LibreOffice. The SEND IT / CHASE text is a bold dark-red font on the flag cells, so it stands out when it fires and shows nothing when it doesn't. (Verified: opened and recalculated in LibreOffice — held, days-since-sent, both flags, the counts and the held-dollar total all compute.)

Notes / judgment calls

The held figure is deliberately simple. RCV − Received − Deductible is transparent — you can eyeball it. It assumes the deductible is the homeowner's share and everything else on the claim is either already received or still held. When the release check lands, bump Received up (or just mark Released? Y) and the row drops out of your held total.
A supplement raises two cells, not one. Every time a supplement is approved, raise Total claim (RCV) by the same amount you add to Received so far — otherwise the held figure drops by the size of the supplement and you go chase money the sheet says isn't there. (Supplements are Play 08.)
Some policies pay actual cash value only. On those there is no second check — nothing was held back to release. Check the policy type before you chase; if it's ACV-only, mark the row Released? Y and move on, or it sits in the held total and flags SEND IT forever.
Y/N is not prefilled. Set Released? to N on a live held job so it counts toward the box totals, and Y the day the money clears — same discipline as marking an invoice Paid on the money-owed list (Play 1).
The follow-up day-count is yours, not an industry fact. Forty-five is a plain starting point so the sheet does something out of the box. What counts as "too quiet" on a release is your call — change it whenever you like.
What the carrier needs, and any deadline to claim it, are set by the policy — not by this sheet. Build your proof package to what your carriers actually ask for, and don't let a held claim drift, in case there's a window on it.
It pairs with the rest of the money system. The map of how a storm claim pays is Play 13; the follow-up call is the collection call (Play 3); the held total belongs in your weekly money meeting (Play 1) right next to what you're owed.
Count from the range. The job block runs rows 6 through 65, and the flags, the dropdown and the three box totals all count that range. Need more rows? Insert them INSIDE the block, not below the last one — a row typed under row 65 is invisible to every flag and total. If you do go past 65, widen the $6:$65 ranges in the box formulas to match.
The sheet ships with the numbers already saved in it, so a phone preview shows real figures; they recalculate as soon as you type in it.

The one thing

Do this this week

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Same fire

Insurance money stuck — the carrier, the mortgage company, the second check

All the fires →

Fixed this?

Slow carrier money is how a good storm season turns into a thin winter.

The fire right behind it is usually Winter's coming and cash is thin.