Roof claim deadlines that actually bind
Your policy prints a deadline that Missouri law makes unenforceable, and it does not print the one that really matters. Six clocks run in a roof claim. Here is which of them are real, which are void in this state, and which one expires for everybody in October.
- To sue a Missouri insurer
- Ten years. RSMo 516.110(1).
- The one year clause in your policy
- Null and void here. RSMo 431.030.
- To cancel a roofing contract after a denial
- Five business days. RSMo 407.725(3).
- To cancel a public adjuster contract
- Three business days. RSMo chapter 325.
The suit-against-us clause, and why Missouri voids it
Open almost any national homeowners policy form and find the section headed something like suit against us. It will say that no action can be brought against the insurer unless it is started within one year, or sometimes two, after the date of loss. Homeowners read that clause, count the months since the storm, and conclude that it is too late.
In Missouri that clause does not do what it says. Two provisions work together. RSMo 516.110(1) sets a ten year limitation period for an action on a written promise to pay money, and a homeowners policy is exactly that. And RSMo 431.030 provides that a contract term which purports to fix a shorter limitation period than the statute is null and void. So the printed one year clause is not merely generous to argue against, it is unenforceable as written.
Two cautions, and they matter. First, none of this is a reason to wait. Evidence decays, roofs get replaced, adjusters move firms, and a ten year statute is not a strategy. Second, a limitation period is not the only clock in the policy, and the other clocks are not voided by anything.
This page is a description of statutes, not legal advice, and no page written by a roofing contractor could be anything else. Limitation questions turn on the exact wording of your policy, on when your cause of action accrued, and on facts nobody on this site knows. If a deadline is genuinely live in your situation, that is a conversation with a lawyer, not with a roofer.
Six clocks, and what each one actually governs
Every citation below can be read in full at revisor.mo.gov. Statutes change, so check the current text rather than trusting a roofer's website, including this one.
What RSMo 407.725(3) is actually for
It exists because of a specific pattern. Somebody knocks after a storm, a homeowner signs a roofing contract on the assumption that insurance will pay for the work, and then the insurer denies the claim. Without the statute the homeowner is holding a contract for a roof they cannot fund and a company holding their deposit.
The statute closes that. Where a residential roofing contract is contingent on insurance paying, the homeowner has five business days from the insurer's written denial to cancel, the contract itself has to carry a detachable notice of that right, and any payment made has to be returned within ten business days of the cancellation.
Three details worth noticing. The clock runs from the insurer's written denial, not from the signature and not from a phone call. The notice has to be detachable, so a contract that buries the right in a paragraph of small print is not compliant. And this right sits in the same section that bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating your claim, which tells you what the legislature was looking at when it wrote all of it.
What to do about all of this on a Tuesday
Report promptly, because the notice provision is the clock that actually catches people. Calendar anything the carrier sends you that has a date on it, especially a proof of loss form. Keep the correspondence, in one folder, with dates. If you are handed a roofing contract that depends on insurance paying, check for the detachable cancellation notice before you sign, and treat its absence as information about the company.
And do not let anybody tell you it is too late because a year has passed. That is the one deadline in the pile that Missouri has already dealt with. Whether it is too late in your particular circumstances is a question for a lawyer, and it is worth an hour of one.
If you have already had a denial, start here · If you want somebody licensed to argue it, start here
Get it documented while it is fresh
The deadline that catches people is the notice provision, and the cure for it is moving early. Keys Roofing photographs every slope, measures the roof and writes a priced scope, and the document is yours to keep from the day it is written.
Keys does not represent you to your insurer and does not negotiate any part of a claim. The claim stays in your name from the first call to the last cheque.
Roofing, gutters and downspouts across greater St. Louis. No siding, no windows, no commercial work.
Ask for a roof inspection
This reaches Keys Roofing, a roofing contractor. It does not reach your insurer, it does not open a claim, and nothing you type here is submitted to anybody but Keys.