In Parks‘ last post, "What is the Proper Scope of Appraisal in Tennessee?", he pointed out the Merrimack decision in which the Court of Appeals held that appraisal is not appropriate for decisions regarding coverage and liability. In considering my response, I spoke with Chuck Howarth, who is part of The Howarth Group, a claims consulting and public adjusting business based out of Nashville. Chuck’s perspective on the appraisal process is unique for two reasons. First, his group handles more insurance appraisals in Tennessee than anyone else of which I’m aware. Second, he worked for eight or ten years with State Farm as an adjuster before moving to the other side of the fence as a public adjuster, which is where he’s served for almost 25 years now. In fact, he even trained staff adjusters for State Farm so his experience with the inner workings of insurance companies can come in handy.
So, when Chuck and his business partner, Denis Rowe (both Tennessee Public Adjusters), read Parks’ recent post about appraisal, they had a few comments. First, as to whether appraisal can be beneficial, they stated:
While we have used both public adjusting and the appraisal process to resolve claims, we have found that in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky we get far better settlements using appraisal than serving as a property owner’s public adjuster. Of course its critical that a public adjuster have signficant experience with the appraisal process before heading this road.
Another issue they pointed out was that some insurance companies are taking the Merrimack case to the extreme and "are trying to prevent appraisals from happening by saying that the only thing an appraisal panel can do is to determine the pricing of their scope that they have decided is part of the loss." Under this interpretation, the insurance company, not the appraisers, determine the scope of the damage. This is definitely not good for insureds because the biggest problem with insurance adjusters’ estimates is usually the scope of the necessary repairs, not the price. For example if a tornado damages a home and everyone agrees the damage is covered, an appraiser’s job would be to determine what needs to be repaired and the necessary cost of those repairs. In that situation, some insurance companies would counter that an appraisal is inappropriate to determine what items need to be repaired (i.e., the scope), but rather appraisal is only appropriate for determining the necessary cost of repairs for the scope as determined by the insurance company. Although I’ve not researched that particular issue yet, I feel certain that insurance companies taking this position are dead wrong. More on that next time.