Shingle And Siding Matching Rules By State

Asphalt shingles are made in production runs, and the granule blend shifts between runs even inside the same product and the same color name. Add ten years of sun on the installed roof and the gap widens further, because the original has faded and the new bundle has not. Put them side by side on the same plane and the repair reads as a patch from the street. That is true no matter how carefully the roofer works, and it is true even when the product code on the wrapper is identical.

Siding is worse. Vinyl color lines get discontinued on a five to seven year cycle, and a profile that was current when the house was built can be gone entirely. Steel and aluminum fade in a way that is nearly impossible to chase with new stock.

Insurance departments across the Midwest have taken different positions. One approach treats a continuous surface, meaning an uninterrupted roof plane or an unbroken wall of siding, as the unit that has to look consistent after repair, which puts the burden on the carrier to replace the whole surface when a reasonable match is not available. The other approach reads the policy literally: the promise is to repair with material of like kind and quality, and a shingle from the same manufacturer in the same color line satisfies that whether or not it looks the same after installation.

Your state may sit in either camp, and some have issued bulletins rather than statutes, which carriers treat with varying enthusiasm. Verify the current position with your own state's department of insurance before you argue with an adjuster. A contractor telling you what the law says in your state, including this page, is not a substitute for the department's own language.

Arguing that a repair will look bad is subjective and adjusters hear it every day. Proving that the original product is unavailable is objective. We pull the manufacturer's current color line, get a written discontinuation confirmation from the supplier where one exists, and photograph a physical sample of the closest available product held against your existing roof or wall in daylight. That package is what moves a carrier, and it is completely different from a contractor's assertion that nothing will match.

Where the product is still made, we photograph a sample board against the weathered original anyway, because a documented color delta is at least evidence. Sometimes it settles the question and sometimes it does not.

Timing matters more than volume. Bring matching up while the scope is being written, not after the check clears, because reopening a settled scope is a supplement and supplements need a reason. Put the request in writing, attach the product documentation, and cite the policy language and the state position by name rather than describing them. Ask the adjuster for their position in writing too. A carrier that has to put a matching denial on paper sometimes reconsiders it.

If the answer is still no and your state's rules appear to say otherwise, the department of insurance complaint process exists and it is free. It does not always change the outcome. It does put a regulator's file number on a claim that was previously a phone conversation.

Some of these get resolved in a phone call and some do not get resolved at all. A roof where three slopes test clean and the product is still in production is a hard matching case in most Midwest states, and we say so up front instead of selling an argument we do not think will land. A house with discontinued siding on the storm-facing wall is a much better case. John Beal Roofing has been handling Midwest storm claims since 1947, and the useful thing we bring to a matching dispute is documentation and a straight assessment of which fight is worth having.