Realistically, a policyholder should not expect an unbiased report from an engineer hired by their insurance provider. While these professionals are theoretically supposed to act as neutral third parties, the reality of the industry creates a systemic bias that overwhelmingly favors the insurance company.
The Economic Conflict of Interest The primary driver of this bias is the financial relationship between the engineering firm and the insurer. For many specialized forensic engineering firms, insurance companies represent the overwhelming majority of their revenue stream. Because the insurer acts as the paymaster, the engineer often functions more like a “hired gun” tasked with finding technical justifications to minimize or deny claim payouts. If an engineer consistently provides honest reports that force an insurer to pay out large claims, they risk being removed from the insurer’s “approved” list and losing future business. Consequently, when the cause of damage is ambiguous, these engineers will typically default to a “tie-breaker” conclusion that supports the insurer.
Secret Alterations and “Peer Reviews” Even when a field engineer conducts a fair inspection and writes an unbiased report, the insurance company or engineering firm may secretly alter it before the policyholder ever sees it . Following major disasters like Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Ian, whistleblowers and court investigations exposed a practice where initial reports confirming storm damage were systematically rewritten during a “peer review” process. Managers or desk adjusters—who had never visited the property—would delete the original engineer’s findings and falsely attribute the damage to uncovered exclusions, such as long-term deterioration or soil settlement. In one instance following Hurricane Ian, an adjuster testified that 44 out of 46 of his reports were altered to reduce the policyholders’ payouts, sometimes by as much as 98 percent.
Mirrorring and Boilerplate Language Reports generated by insurer-retained engineers often contain language designed specifically to inextricably dovetail with the insurer’s policy exclusions.
- Rebranding Damage: Engineers will frequently classify obvious, catastrophic structural damage as merely “aesthetic” or “cosmetic” to trigger policy limitations and avoid paying for full repairs.
- Lack of Science: Many of these reports rely on generic, boilerplate templates that are devoid of actual scientific calculations, relying instead on pre-written phrases that blame the damage on “wear and tear” or “maintenance neglect” regardless of the actual evidence.
Plausible Deniability Ultimately, insurance companies utilize these biased engineering reports to establish “plausible deniability”. By hiring a licensed engineer, the insurance company can officially blame the denial of a claim on an “independent” technical expert, rather than admitting it is an internal corporate decision to save money.
Because of this well-documented, systemic bias, industry experts strongly advise policyholders not to rely on the insurance company’s engineer. Instead, policyholders should thoroughly scrutinize any denial report and consider hiring their own independent public adjusters, structural engineers, or legal counsel to provide a truly objective assessment of the damage and … whatever you do … do NOT insist that your insurance carrier obtain an engineer’s inspection report of your damage. If you believe one is necessary, arrange it yourself.
