Why Do Insurance Company Engineers Often Say "No Damage" When Damage is Clearly Observed?

Our experience has shown that insurance company-retained engineers do not try to determine how much damage exists but rather, take the position that no damage exists even when the damage is obvious.

The photograph below of a hail-damaged roof penetration flashing was provided by a property owner-retained engineer in a report showing and quantifying hail damage. The insurance company-retained engineer’s response is the caption below the photograph.

“...insufficient evidence is available to confirm/deny the presence of hail damage to the metals at these locations.” - Insurance Company-Retained Engineer

Despite the fact that the insurance company-retained engineer erroneously established the position that there was not enough evidence to either confirm or deny the presence of hail damage with regard to this photograph that clearly shows hail damage, he concluded, elsewhere in his report, that there was no hail damage. Based on the engineer’s

conclusions, the adjuster denied the claim.

The photograph below shows another example where the insurance company-retained engineer comments on damage that he can infer was caused by some other source while ignoring actual storm damage. His caption is below the photograph he provided in his report.

“Moisture stained acoustical ceiling tile adjacent/near air vent...” - Insurance Company-Retained Engineer

This is one of the insurance company-retained engineer’s favorite excuses for moisture-stained ceiling tiles – being near HVAC vents. However, this engineer does not show that the HVAC duct is causing the stains and ignores the water in the light fixture and the fact that leaks from the roof actually caused this damage.

These are just two of many situations we have witnessed where insurance company engineers say "no damage" and did not evaluate losses in a professional and unbiased manner. Our opinion is that this conflict of interest situation has been created because engineers that have become dependent on insurance company business must evaluate losses in a manner that favors insurance companies to maintain that business.

Managed Response, Inc. has been in the disaster recovery and damage assessment business, working for property owners and insurance companies since 1998 to evaluate, quantify and reconstruct property losses. During those 26 years we have observed the gradual establishment of what we refer to as the Engineering/Insurance Industrial Complex which provides insurance adjusters with plausible deniability and the ability to defer to engineers for claims that are denied – no matter how obviously biased the engineering evaluation is.