Waiving a deductible in Texas: ch. 707 & §27.02

What the statute covers

§27.02 makes it an offense for a person selling goods or services to advertise or promise to pay, waive, absorb or rebate an insured's deductible — or to do the work knowing the insured will avoid paying it. Note the verbs: the advertisement alone completes the offense — no completed job, no paid claim required. It is a Class B misdemeanor (up to 180 days in county jail and a $2,000 fine, per TDI guidance), and an insured who knowingly submits a claim built on the waiver commits an offense too. Ch. 707 adds the machinery: the insured must pay the deductible (§707.002), insurers may demand reasonable proof of payment before releasing depreciation holdback (§707.005), and contracts of $1,000 or more paid from claim proceeds must print the statutory deductible notice in 12-point bold type (§707.004) — the notice language is in the kit's compliance pack.

The folklore, corrected

• “Everyone does it” — enforcement is complaint-driven and post-storm; the pattern is exactly what TDI and district attorneys look for after landfall
• “We'll just discount the roof” — a discount engineered to equal the deductible is the absorption the statute names
• “The homeowner signed a waiver” — the homeowner cannot waive the statute; the duty runs to the claim, not the customer's preference

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