A storm comes through the area, causing significant structural damage to your home’s roof. You’re happy your family is safe, but what happens when it comes to insurance coverage? Most often, events like these are accidental or unavoidable, and your home insurance policy could cover them. However, when working with your insurance company, you need to know about your rights. What many people don’t know is that your homeowner’s insurance has a requirement to provide you with the same quality of product that was there prior to the incident. What happens if they cannot do that? Here’s what you need to know about matching laws.
What Is the Matching Law for roofing materials?
Some states have a matching law, North Carolina does not. This law helps minimize the risk that you’ll have a home that’s mismatched.
Let’s say the insurance company agrees it is responsible for making repairs to the roof. However, the roofing contractor cannot match the color and type of material on your existing roof with new, available product. The manufacturer may no longer be around, or it no longer offers the color you have.
In states without the matching law, there’s no protection for the property owner. The insurance company may try to find a product that’s close enough and use that. That’s not what happens in a matching state like Colorado. In a matching law state, the insurance company must pay to:
- Match the new materials with the existing roof just as it was prior to the covered event OR
- If it cannot do that, the insurance company must pay to have the entire roof replaced
The new materials typically need to match in terms of quality, size, and color, creating a uniform appearance as if nothing happened to the structure when the work is complete.
How Matching Laws Like This Can Help You Pay for Your New Roof
Whenever possible, an insurance company will take the least expensive route to get the roof of a home back to the condition it was prior to the event. That means if a section of the roof can be repaired rather than replacing the rest of it, that’s what they will pay for, and no more.
However, that’s not always possible. Sometimes, the existing materials on the home can’t be found, and as such, the insurance company must pay to have the entire roof replaced instead of paying just for the repairs.
When Could Matching Laws Help Your roof repairs?
The first step is to determine if your insurance policy covers the incident. Many home insurance policies will provide coverage for damage that comes from a sudden and accidental loss. Some common types of perils that may lead to this include:
- Fire damage
- Smoke damage
- Hail damage
- Some water damage
- Strikes from falling objects – like a tree limb striking a home from a storm
In these situations, the insurance company will require that the damage be inspected to determine if the policy covers the damage.
Keep in mind that if the damage is not from a covered incident like those listed above, the insurance company does not have to pay at all. For example, if there’s extensive wear and tear on the roof due to age or poor maintenance, the insurance company will not cover this loss.
If the damage is covered, insurance policies often have a provision within them (or matching laws may apply) in which the company must pay to repair or replace the property with material that is considered “like kind and quality” to what you already have or “similar material.”
How Do You Know If Roofing Material Is Available?
Your roofing company will work with the insurance company to provide the inspection of the roof to determine if repairs are possible. Then, the roofing company will work to try to source the same type of roofing material you have on your home. If possible, they will purchase it and make the repairs as needed.
Sometimes this is not possible because there is no exact match of the color or the size of the roofing material. When the roofing company cannot provide a material that matches properly, they will let the insurance company know this. At that point, the insurance company may do some research to determine if that’s the case. If so, the insurance company may decide it is then necessary to replace the entire roof.
A New Roof Installation Is a Great Benefit from Matching Laws
For the property owner, it is generally a good thing to have the entire roof replaced. This could be a project that is worth $10,000 or more on some larger homes. If the insurance company elects to replace the roof, that means you do not have to worry about paying for the cost of replacing your home’s roof later. Most roofs will have decades of life in them, and your home will have a new roof to protect it from the elements. The insurance company will only pay for what’s necessary and will pay for the same type of material – you may be able to pay out of pocket for additional updates if you like, such as choosing a higher quality roof.
Also note that by having a new roof installed, it helps to add value to your home. Just patching a repair could create an unsightly difference in shading or coloring, making it obvious repair work was done. That could hurt the value of your home. However, with a new roof, that’s eliminated, and it could be a valuable selling point.
How to Get Help with Your New Roof Installation
If you have damage to your roof that you suspect the insurance company will pay for, your first step should be to reach out to a roofing contractor. Allow the contractor to provide an inspection and then work with your insurance company to get the repairs taken care of and your home secure. Even if a full replacement is not possible, having a licensed professional handle the repairs is always beneficial to property owners.
