ITEL in one sentence
An ITEL report is an independent lab analysis of a damaged building material (most often a shingle) that names the manufacturer and product, identifies the closest current-production match, and tells your insurance carrier whether a true match is still on the market. For Texas homeowners filing a roof claim, it is the third-party data point that often decides whether the carrier authorizes a spot repair or a full slope or roof replacement.
Who owns ITEL now: the May 2025 Nearmap acquisition
itel Laboratories, the independent matching lab that built the building-materials database the insurance industry has relied on for two decades, is now owned by Nearmap. Nearmap, the aerial-imagery and property-intelligence company, announced the acquisition on May 20, 2025 with the deal expected to close in Q2 2025. The lab’s product line has been folded under the brand “itel Analysis” (Nearmap’s current product name for the matching and repairability suite), and itel itself is now styled lowercase in Nearmap’s materials.
For homeowners, the practical change is mostly behind the scenes. The lab still operates as a neutral third party. The sample collection process, the report format, and the carrier-side workflow are all the same. What did change is investment in the modern, mobile-first version of the product, which is where the new turnaround speed comes from (more on that below).
How an ITEL report gets made, step by step
The process is the same whether you are dealing with a hail claim in Stone Oak or a wind claim in Alamo Heights. A roofing contractor or insurance adjuster handles the sampling; the homeowner does not need to do anything other than approve the work.
- Sample collection. A contractor or adjuster removes a representative shingle (or other material) from the roof. The sample is small enough to slip into a standard envelope.
- Submission. The sample ships to itel along with a submission form identifying the property, the loss, and the carrier. With the modern itel Analysis mobile workflow, the submission can also originate at the loss site.
- Lab analysis. itel runs physical and chemical comparisons against its database, which Nearmap reports catalogs more than 20,000 products and 6.7 million data points across roofing, flooring, and siding.
- Report return. The report comes back with the manufacturer, product line, color, and a current-production match (or the closest available substitute, with a note when no match exists).
- Carrier review. The carrier uses the report to determine what scope of repair or replacement the policy will cover. The matching question is what determines whether the loss is treated as repairable.
What’s inside an ITEL report
Every ITEL report follows the same general structure, regardless of material type:
- Manufacturer and product line. A specific call-out, not a generic description. For an asphalt shingle, the report names the line by brand (a CertainTeed Landmark, a GAF Timberline HDZ, an Owens Corning Duration, etc.).
- Color and shade identification. The exact color name as cataloged by the manufacturer, plus shade-comparison notes.
- Match availability. Whether the original product is still in current production, has been discontinued, or has been reformulated under a new SKU.
- Closest available match. When the original is discontinued, the report identifies the nearest current-production product and notes how close the visual and structural match actually is.
- Discontinued-stock reservation. When a discontinued product is found in held inventory, itel reserves it for 30 days so the repair can proceed without delay.
- Analysis summary. A brief description of the testing performed and the basis for the conclusions.
How an ITEL report shapes your insurance claim in Texas
Roof claims are common. Nearmap reports that roughly 5% of the more than 75 million insured U.S. homeowners file a property claim each year, with wind and hail damage making up a significant share. On those claims, the ITEL report is the document a carrier uses to settle the matching question, and the matching question is what decides scope. If the original shingle is still in production and a true match is available, the carrier will typically authorize a spot repair. If no current-production match exists, the conversation shifts to whether the policy covers a slope or full-roof replacement so the appearance remains uniform. The companion product on the carrier side, itel’s Roof Repairability Analysis, exists specifically to give insurers a defensible repair-versus-replace determination per roof slope, which is why ITEL output now feeds carrier decisions earlier in the process than it used to.
Texas does not have a strict statutory matching mandate the way some states do. Carriers and policyholders interpret the policy’s uniform-appearance language case by case, and the ITEL report becomes the load-bearing piece of evidence in that interpretation. If you are filing a roof claim after a hail or wind event in San Antonio or anywhere in Texas, knowing what the ITEL report says before the carrier finalizes scope is often the difference between a partial repair and a full replacement. The same logic applies whether the trigger was hail damage, wind damage, or storm scope where matching the existing shingles becomes the central question.
If you are looking at a damaged roof now and want a contractor’s read on whether an ITEL report is going to matter for your claim, schedule a free roof inspection and we will walk the roof, document what we find, and tell you straight whether sampling for an ITEL is the right next step.
When your shingle is discontinued
The discontinued-shingle problem is the most consequential reason a homeowner ever sees an ITEL report. Roofing manufacturers have been consolidating product lines aggressively. Nearmap reports the available 3-tab shingle SKUs in the United States dropped roughly 68% over the past five years as architectural shingles took over the market. For homes installed before that consolidation, the original product may simply no longer exist.
The data on how often this happens is pretty striking. Across itel’s matching cases, more than 54% of 3-tab matching attempts come back with no current-production match in the market. A no-match result is not a paperwork issue, it is the trigger for the matching-law conversation with your carrier. The ITEL report is what documents the no-match status in a way the carrier cannot dispute, because the data comes from a third-party lab rather than from your contractor or from a competing claim. If your roof is older or you know it was installed with a 3-tab product that has since been discontinued, the ITEL report is often the lever that moves a repair-only scope to a slope or full-roof replacement under the policy’s matching language. This pattern is also why insurance carriers sometimes balk at older roofs and why understanding recoverable depreciation matters when the carrier finalizes the payout.
How fast and how much: turnaround and cost
Modern itel Analysis turnaround is fast. Nearmap publishes a results-in-as-little-as-30-minutes SLA on the mobile product, which is a substantial change from the multi-day windows quoted in older industry materials. Most submissions return within that window; complex analyses can take longer.
Cost is harder to pin down because Nearmap does not publish itel Analysis pricing publicly. Pricing is set per submission and is typically billed through the contractor or the insurance carrier rather than directly to the homeowner. If you are working with a roofer who is sampling for a claim, the report cost is generally absorbed into the claim workflow, not a separate line item you pay out of pocket. If you want to know whether your specific claim would benefit from an ITEL report, schedule a free roof inspection and we will give you a straight answer.
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