Since 1990, twelve states have adopted some form of the NAIC Model Regulation known as the insurance “matching statute.” In that time, most of the attention has focused on the statute’s phrase “reasonably uniform appearance.” As beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, a homeowner beholding replacement siding is less likely than her insurer to think it strikes a reasonably uniform appearance.

On April 30, 2019 the Connecticut Superior Court in Kamansky v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., No. CV-18-6094809, highlighted another aspect. Granting summary judgment for the insurer, the court held that Connecticut’s matching statute (requiring a reasonably uniform appearance among “adjacent” items) did not require replacement of a house’s entire siding even though the existing, faded, siding was not reasonably uniform with the replaced siding, because the damaged section wasn’t adjacent to the other sections of the same house. In so doing, Kamansky further guides insurance professionals with interpreting that “reasonably uniform appearance” limits to “adjacent” items.