Missouri Court: “Equivalent” Requires that Replacement Siding be Both Equal in Value and Virtually Identical

In December, we published a post about a Minnesota Supreme Court case that held that under a replacement cost policy, the phrase “comparable material and quality” meant that all of the siding on 20 buildings had to be replaced to avoid a color mismatch, even though less than 2% had actually been damaged by hail.  According to the court, that was necessary to ensure a “reasonable” color match.  Last week, a unanimous panel of Missouri’s intermediate level appellate court reached a similar conclusion under a replacement cost contract of insurance that required replacement “for equivalent construction and use.”  In Alessi v. Mid-Century Ins. Co., 2015 WL 3874799, 2015 Mo.App. LEXIS 679 (Mo.App., Jun. 23, 2015), the judges held that the…