ONTARIO COUNTY, N.Y. – An insurance expert is weighing in on the problems we’re exposing after a summer hail storm left many homes still pock-marked by hail damage. The homeowners are telling News10NBC Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean the only thing they want is for their home to be restored to the way it was.

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Alex Zepkowski’s Farmington home is littered with holes from the hail in July.

“We have two broken windows. One here and one up top,” Zepkowski said, pointing to her front windows.

Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “What do you want to happen?”

Alex Zepkowski, homeowner: “Answers. I want someone to pick up the phone and have a conversation with me.”

Matthew Hebert from Tall Pines Roofing is Zepkowski’s contractor. He’s trying to help her with her insurance company.

Brean: “What’s the hold up here?”

Hebert, Tall Pines Roofing: “I have no idea.”

Brean: “I can hear work being done over there and I can hear work being done over there. So why is that happening and this doesn’t happen?”

Hebert: “Okay, so what you’re hearing is roofs going on. Most insurance companies are very close on the roof, within a thousand or two. That’s why you’re hearing roofs going on. What you’re not hearing what’s going on is siding. Siding is where the big disconnect is.”

Hebert says in 8 out of the 10 repair jobs he’s got from this storm in July, the insurance company only wants to replace the damaged siding: not all of the siding.

“It wouldn’t matter if they were $100,000 houses or million dollar houses. You’re depreciating the value of the home if you’re putting on siding that doesn’t match,” Hebert said.

New York is one of 36 states that are non-matching states. We went to FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation, an online subscription database for insurance companies, to find out how that affects you.

Brean: “What does that mean for the homeowner?”

Christine Barlow, FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation: “What that means is that there is no statute in New York state that dictates how an insurance carrier needs to settle a claim. They’re leaving that to the policy language.”

Consider California, which is a matching state. It makes insurance companies repair and replace damage “to conform to a reasonably uniform appearance.”

Brean: “Is there an advantage to homeowners living in a matching state?”

Barlow: “It depends on how the statute is worded. Some statutes say, yes, if there is damage and some of your shingles are older, that they have to match.”

Most of the complaints come from Allstate customers. Allstate told News10NBC they’re working with people based on their policies. Some customers said there’s been movement since our reporting started but no work on the siding. Zepkowski is with Stillwater Insurance out of Florida. News10NBC is still trying to reach that company.

Barlow explained the principle of indemnity: the idea that insurance restores your property to what it was before the damage.

Barlow: “Insurance is based on the principle of indemnity, that you should be restored to your pre-loss condition. So if you had a roof that matched before the loss then you should end up with a roof that matched after the loss. Now, it’s a huge issue within the industry and courts have fallen out on both sides. Some courts say, yeah, you need to match that. Other courts say, close enough is close enough. So it goes both ways and the issue has evolved with the industry and some policies are now written so that they specifically say if we can’t match your damaged property then we’re going to do close enough. We are not going remove undamaged property in order to make it match.”

Brean: “I think that’s what we’re seeing in New York because what people are telling me, their insurance companies are telling them we’ll replace the part of the siding that was damaged by the hail but not the part above it that wasn’t damaged.”

Barlow: “Yes and that happens. There are plenty of policies that specifically say we will replace the damaged property. That’s what they owe. The property that got damaged, they need to fix the damaged part. But when the damaged part is only one side of a four sided building and it doesn’t match anymore that’s where all this matching stuff has come from. Because people are, like, ‘My house doesn’t match anymore. I had a matching house before. This isn’t fair.’ And yeah, it looks kind of tacky but it really depends on how the policy is written.”

*A.I. assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how News10NBC uses A.I.*