What a Missouri Roofer May Not Do on a Claim
This is the part of the trade where the gap between what homeowners are told and what the law says is widest. Four separate things get misrepresented in this market constantly, and three of them are misrepresented in the homeowner's favour, which is exactly why they sell.
Not legal advice. This page cites statutes so that you can read them yourself. If you have a live dispute with an insurer, talk to a lawyer or a licensed public adjuster, not to a roofing contractor and not to a website.
The claim representation ban
A contractor shall not represent or negotiate, or offer or advertise to represent or negotiate, on behalf of an owner or possessor of real estate on any insurance claim in connection with the repair or replacement of roof systems.RSMo 407.725, from revisor.mo.gov
Read the second clause carefully, because it is the one that does the work. The statute bars not only doing it but offering or advertising to do it. A roofing company that puts "we handle the insurance side for you" on a truck has already done the thing the statute prohibits, whether or not any claim ever follows.
A violation is treated as an unfair practice under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which carries private action exposure. This is not a dormant rule.
What a contractor may properly do is not mysterious and it covers everything a homeowner actually needs. A roofer may go up on the roof, photograph what is there, measure it, write a scope of work, hand that scope to you, and be present on site as the contractor when the adjuster comes out. The documentation is yours to keep and to use. What the roofer may not do is stand in your place with your insurer, and no roofer in Missouri may handle your claim for you.
Properly offered by a contractor
Photographs of the roof. Measurements. A written scope of work. Attendance on site when the adjuster inspects, as the contractor who would do the work. Answers to technical questions about materials and methods.
Prohibited by the statute
Acting for you with the insurer. Corresponding on your behalf about the claim. Advertising that the company will take the claim off your hands. Any offer, in any form, to represent or negotiate the claim.
The deductible ban
The same statute separately makes it unlawful for a roofing contractor to advertise or promise to absorb, rebate, discount or otherwise take care of any part of an insurance deductible. There is no version of this that is legal, including the polite versions: a discount that happens to equal the deductible, a line item that disappears, a "storm damage credit" applied at signing.
Understand why the rule exists rather than just that it does. Your deductible is the part of the loss your policy says you carry. A contractor who absorbs it is either inflating the scope to recover it from your insurer, which is fraud that gets committed in your name and on your policy, or performing a smaller job than the one described. Neither outcome is good for the homeowner, and the second one is a roof.
An offer of this kind is the single most useful signal a homeowner ever gets, because a company willing to commit a statutory violation to close a sale in your driveway has told you exactly how it will behave when something goes wrong on your roof in year three.
The matching myth
Here is the claim you will hear: Missouri law requires an insurer to replace undamaged shingles so that the roof matches. It is not true, and the citation usually attached to it is worse than wrong.
Missouri has no matching statute and no matching regulation for roofs. The regulation people cite governs automobile body parts and has nothing to do with buildings. The "uniform appearance" language that circulates with it belongs to another state's rule entirely.
What Missouri actually has is case law. Alessi v. Mid-Century Insurance, 464 S.W.3d 529, Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District, 2015, is the decision people are reaching for. Whether your insurer must replace undamaged slopes turns on the wording of your own policy, on what it says about direct physical loss and about the standard for repair, and it is a question about your document rather than about Missouri law in general.
The practical version: read your policy, or have somebody who is qualified read it. Do not accept a roofing salesperson's summary of Missouri insurance law, including this one. Everything on this page is written so you can go and check it.
Two more things worth knowing
You have longer than the policy says
The limitation period for an action on a written contract in Missouri is ten years, under RSMo 516.110(1). Insurance policies routinely print a much shorter deadline for suing the insurer. RSMo 431.030 makes a contractual provision purporting to shorten a limitation period null and void. If you have been told your window closed because of a clause in the policy booklet, that is worth a lawyer's opinion rather than a shrug.
Public adjusters are a different profession entirely
A public adjuster is licensed separately under RSMo chapter 325 and works for the policyholder on the claim, which is the role a roofing contractor is barred from occupying. There is no statutory cap on what a public adjuster may charge, so the fee is a matter of negotiation and should be in writing before you engage one. RSMo 325.055 bars a public adjuster from also doing the repair work, which is the structural separation the whole scheme rests on. Anybody offering to be both is offering something the statute does not permit.
A Missouri tax credit that is about to disappear
RSMo 135.445 created a Missouri tax credit equal to a homestead insurance deductible incurred during 2025, capped at 5,000 dollars, and transferable. No new credits may be issued after 15 October 2026. This is real, it is on the books, it is expiring, and almost nobody in this market is telling homeowners about it. If you carried a deductible on a 2025 storm loss on your home, it is worth asking your tax preparer about before that date.
There is no Missouri roofing licence to check
Missouri has no statewide roofing licence. Senate Bill 1022 in 2016, Senate Bill 153 in 2019 and Senate Bill 326 in 2021 all failed. SB 326 is quoted on contractor sites as though it were law and it never passed. Licensing here is municipal and inconsistent, which is covered on the permits page.
Keys is bound by this page too
RSMo 407.725 binds Keys Roofing exactly as it binds every company in the ranking. A roofing contractor setting out what roofing contractors are barred from doing is either unusually honest or unusually clever, and you are entitled to decide which. Nothing on this site offers to represent, negotiate, handle or take over a claim, and nothing on it says a word about a deductible, because Keys is subject to the statute too.
The other thing worth saying is that the four claims corrected on this page are the four most common things said to homeowners in this metro after a storm, and every one of them is said in order to close a sale faster. A homeowner who knows the actual rules is harder to rush. That is good for the homeowner and it is bad for the way a large part of this trade sells, which is a trade off Keys is willing to make in public.
Have Keys Roofing look at it instead
If a storm is in your story and you want the roof documented rather than the claim taken over, that is the distinction this whole page is about. Keys photographs and measures the roof, writes a scope you keep, and meets the adjuster there as the contractor.
A look at the roof here means photographs, measurements and a written scope you keep on file whether or not you hire anybody. If an insurance claim is part of your situation, the claim stays in your name and in your hands: under RSMo 407.725 a Missouri roofing contractor may not represent or negotiate a homeowner's insurance claim, and Keys does not. Keys documents what is on the roof and meets the adjuster there as the contractor.
Straight through to the Keys Roofing office. Roofing, gutters and downspouts across greater St. Louis, and nothing else. Atlas and Malarkey shingles. Licensed and insured.
This goes to Keys Roofing. It does not go to anyone in the ranking. None of the ranked companies pay to appear here, and none of them receive anything you type into this form.