You can walk away, and the contract has to say so
Most of this site is corrections. This page is a protection, and it is the least known one in Missouri roofing. If you signed a roofing contract expecting insurance to pay for it, and the insurer then says in writing that it will not, the statute gives you a way out and gives your money back on a clock.
What the statute gives you
Where a residential roofing contract is to be paid from the proceeds of a property and casualty insurance policy, the owner may cancel it within five business days after the insurer gives written notice that all or any part of the claim is not a covered loss.
RSMo 407.725(3), in substance
Three parts of that matter more than the rest.
- The clock starts at the insurer's written notice, not at signingThis is what makes the right useful. Roofing contracts get signed in the week after a storm, long before anybody knows what the carrier will do. The five business days run from the moment you learn in writing that the claim, or part of it, is not covered.
- The contract must carry the notice, and it has to be detachableThe statute requires the contract to contain a notice telling you this right exists, in a set form and conspicuously, as a separate detachable section. A contract that does not contain it is a contract whose author either has not read the statute or is hoping you have not.
- Ten business days to give your money backOnce you have cancelled in writing, the contractor has ten business days to return payments, partial payments and deposits, and to return any note or other evidence of indebtedness you signed.
Cancel in writing. Date it, keep a copy, and send it by a method that produces a receipt. A cancellation nobody can prove is a cancellation that did not happen.
Why this right exists
Because of a specific pattern. A crew arrives days after a hail event, walks the street, and signs homeowners onto contracts that are contingent in spirit but not in writing: the work will be done, the insurance will pay, sign here. Then the carrier pays for one slope, or denies it as wear and tear, and the homeowner is holding a signed contract for a roof they cannot fund and a deposit they cannot get back.
The legislature answered that with a cancellation right pinned to the carrier's written decision rather than to the signing date, which is the only timing that helps. It sits in the same section as the ban on a contractor representing your claim, and for the same reason: both are about the gap between what gets promised on a driveway and what an insurance policy actually does.
Read it alongside the deductible prohibition on the who may negotiate page. Together they describe the sales behaviour Missouri decided to stop.
What to look for before you sign anything
- The detachable cancellation noticeFind it physically. If the contract does not contain one and the work is to be paid from insurance proceeds, ask why, and treat the answer as information about the company.
- Whether the price is a real priceA contract that says the price will be "whatever insurance approves" is not a price. It is an open cheque written against a document you have not read yet, and it makes comparison between bidders impossible on purpose.
- The depositHow much, when, and what it is for. Materials that have genuinely been ordered are a reason. A deposit taken on the driveway before anybody has measured is not.
- Who pulls the permitIf the answer is you, ask why. The party that pulls the permit is the party answerable at inspection.
- What happens to bad deckingThe single most common surprise on a Missouri tear-off. Agree the per sheet or per board price in writing before the roof is opened, not after somebody is standing on it holding your ceiling up.
Not legal advice
This is a plain summary of a statutory right, not a substitute for reading the statute or your own contract. If a contractor is refusing to honour a cancellation, that is a question for a lawyer and, if you want it on the record, for the Missouri Attorney General's consumer complaint process.
Documentation, in your name, whether or not you hire anyone
Keys Roofing is a roofing, gutter and downspout company working in greater St. Louis, and that is the only part of Missouri it can send anyone to. If your house is outside that radius, use the guide and hire locally. Nothing here changes based on where you live.
What an inspection produces is a set of photographs, slope by slope measurements and a written scope of the work the roof needs. You keep that file. If there is a claim in your story, the claim stays in your name and in your hands: under RSMo 407.725 a Missouri roofing contractor shall not represent or negotiate an owner's insurance claim, and Keys does not. The contractor's job is to document the roof accurately and to be on the roof as the contractor when the adjuster inspects it.
Ask for a roof inspection
Goes to Keys Roofing. Greater St. Louis only. No obligation, and no part of this form asks anything about your policy limits.
Nothing you type here is sent to any insurer, and nobody from Keys will contact one on your behalf.