Two separate Minnesota cancellation rights apply after a hail storm, and they are constantly confused with each other. One comes from signing at your door. The other comes from your insurer saying no. You can be covered by both, and the contract you were handed is legally required to tell you about the second one.
Sign at your door and you have until midnight of the third business day to cancel, no reason needed. Separately, if a contract is to be paid from insurance proceeds and your claim gets denied, you have 72 hours from being told to cancel that one — and the contractor was required to hand you a detachable “Notice of Cancellation” form, in bold type, before you signed. No form is a red flag you can see without knowing anything about roofs.
Almost certainly yes, if you act quickly. Minnesota gives the buyer in a home solicitation sale — the legal term for a sale made at your home rather than at a place of business — until midnight of the third business day to cancel. You do not need a reason and you do not need anyone’s agreement.
Two practical points the statute makes explicit. The notice has to be in writing, but it does not have to be on a particular form: any written expression of your intention not to be bound is enough. And if you post it, it counts the moment it goes in the mailbox, properly addressed and stamped — not when the contractor gets round to reading it.
Send it to the address written in the agreement. Keep a copy and a note of when you sent it.
Minn. Stat. § 325G.07: “In addition to any other rights the buyer may have, the buyer has the right to cancel a home solicitation sale until midnight of the third business day after the day on which the home solicitation sale occurs.” Source: Minn. Stat. § 325G.07
No. This is a different right from the one above, with its own clock. If you signed a contract for goods and services to be paid out of a property or casualty insurance policy, and your insurer then tells you the claim is denied, you have 72 hours from that notification to cancel.
It applies to contracts with a residential building contractor, a residential remodeler, or a residential roofer. As with a doorstep cancellation, written notice is required but no particular form is, and posting it counts from the moment it is in the mailbox.
Money you have already paid comes back. The statute gives the contractor ten business days from receiving your cancellation to return it.
Minn. Stat. § 326B.811, subd. 1: a person who contracted “to provide goods and services to be paid by the insured from the proceeds of a property or casualty insurance policy has the right to cancel the contract within 72 hours after the insured has been notified by the insurer that the claim has been denied.” Source: Minn. Stat. § 326B.811
Look at the paperwork, not the pitch. Before you sign an insurance-funded roofing contract in Minnesota, the contractor is required to give you two things: a statement in bold type, at least ten point, telling you about the 72-hour cancellation right, and a fully completed, detachable “NOTICE OF CANCELLATION” form in duplicate, attached to the contract.
That is a requirement with a specific, checkable shape. A contract with no detachable cancellation form attached is not following the statute, and you have learned something about how that company handles the rest of its obligations without needing to know anything about roofing.
Then check the licence. It takes about thirty seconds and is covered in the next guide.
Minn. Stat. § 326B.811, subd. 2(a): before entering the contract the contractor must furnish a bold-type statement and “furnish each insured a fully completed form in duplicate, captioned ‘NOTICE OF CANCELLATION,’ which shall be attached to the contract and easily detachable”. Source: Minn. Stat. § 326B.811, subd. 2
Yes. Door-to-door solicitation is lawful, and a contractor noticing hail damage in a neighbourhood they are working in is ordinary. The cancellation right in Minn. Stat. § 325G.07 exists precisely because the legislature expected sales to happen this way and wanted buyers able to reconsider away from the doorstep.
Many Minnesota cities layer their own rule on top: a peddler or solicitor permit, which typically means a background check and proof of insurance before anyone may knock. Those are city ordinances and they vary, so the place to check is your own city’s website.
What you should not do is let urgency make the decision. There is no version of hail damage that gets materially worse because you took two days and got a second opinion, and “this price is only good today” is information about the seller rather than about your roof.
Yes, with narrow exceptions. Anyone meeting the statutory definition of a residential roofer must hold a licence from the Department of Labor and Industry, and an out-of-state company is not exempt from that because it arrived after a storm.
You can check any contractor’s licence yourself, free, in the state lookup. If a company cannot give you a licence number, that is the end of the conversation.
Search any Minnesota contractor by name or licence number in the Department of Labor and Industry’s public license and registration lookup. Source: MN DLI License and Registration Lookup
This page quotes Minnesota statutes and the adopted Minnesota building code and links to the official text of each so you can read it yourself. It is general information from a licensed contractor, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading your own policy. Statutes and codes are amended; the linked sources are authoritative, this page is not. Last reviewed 2026-10-27.
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