Television cameras are back on Hurricane Ian, four years after the storm. Investigative reporter Mahsa Saeidi, who built her name on this beat at WFLA in Tampa, reported on the state’s own Ian numbers while the files were still closing. The numbers have not improved with age. They raise one question for every Panhandle homeowner holding an Isaias file. Why would this storm end any differently?
The short version, in numbers.
- Nearly 740,000 Hurricane Ian claims were filed in Florida.
- 191,000 Ian claims closed without payment, per Florida Office of Insurance Regulation data through June 2023.
- Three of every ten closed Ian claims paid nothing in the state’s mid-2023 release.
- Nearly 8,500 Isaias claims have already closed without payment, eleven days after landfall.
- 44 of one adjuster’s 46 Ian reports were changed after he submitted them, always down, per CBS’s 60 Minutes.
The Ian number nobody should forget
In June 2023, Florida’s Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky released Ian claim data that WFLA’s 8 On Your Side team put in front of homeowners. Insurers had closed nearly 86 percent of Ian claims by then. Three of every ten closed claims ended with no payment at all, nearly 200,000 files. The state’s later tally, through the end of June 2023, fixed the count at 191,000 claims closed without payment out of almost 740,000 filed. Another 35,000 claims sat open with no payment made.
The state’s explanation, relayed by the Office of Insurance Regulation, was that carriers reported no damage or damage below the deductible in many of those files. Attorney David Murray, who sues carriers, told 8 On Your Side he did not buy it. His words: three of every ten carriers saying no coverage or under the deductible is “not where we’re seeing” the damage in the field.
Weiss Ratings, working from National Association of Insurance Commissioners data, later found the same shape across Florida homeowners claims as a whole. Florida insurers closed 46.7 percent of homeowners claims with no payment in 2024, up from 40.0 percent in 2022. A closed file with no payment is not a paperwork detail to the family inside the house. It is the whole claim.
After Ian, the field reports moved too
The Washington Post reported in March 2023 that five adjusters hired by carriers after Ian said their damage reports were altered after submission. Photos came out. Damage descriptions changed. Line items disappeared. In the cases the Post documented, payments ran 45 to 97 percent below the field estimates.
Adjuster Jordan Lee inspected Ian homes for Heritage Property and Casualty. He told CBS’s 60 Minutes in September 2024 that 44 of the 46 reports he wrote were changed, always downward. One estimate he wrote at $488,000 came back at $13,000. Heritage called the reporting flat wrong. The company said its own review of 10,000 Ian claims found 4,162 revised downward, 2,583 revised upward, and about 3,311 unchanged. Florida’s Chief Financial Officer confirmed an active criminal fraud investigation into the allegations. Even by the carrier’s own count, thousands of field reports changed before a dollar moved.
This pattern has a court record, and it is long
Start with Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Flood claims ran through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program and its private partner companies. In a Long Beach, New York case, a federal magistrate judge found that an engineering report had been secretly rewritten. The first version tied the damage to the flood. The rewrite blamed long-term deterioration, and the claim was denied. The court called the practice reprehensible gamesmanship. New York’s Attorney General prosecuted one firm, HiRise Engineering. Its project manager pleaded guilty to a felony for altering a report. The firm pleaded guilty, paid $225,000, and took a permanent ban from the flood program. FEMA offered to review all roughly 144,000 Sandy flood claims. A federal audit later found FEMA offered an additional $270 million on the reviewed claims.
Florida saw the process after Hurricane Irma. In 2019, field adjuster Rod Buvens inspected a tile roof in Estero for United Property and Casualty. The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reported the case in 2023. Buvens found broken and loose tiles and wrote a $70,000 estimate for a full roof replacement. UPC sent engineers. They counted six broken tiles and reported no damage. The final report went out under Buvens’ name. It said no wind damage, no coverage, and $0 owed. Buvens testified under oath in 2020 that a desk adjuster told him to put that language in and to remove items from his estimate. UPC settled the homeowner’s case for $117,000. The roof got replaced.
State Farm’s own file reaches back further. In June 2006, after an Oklahoma jury found State Farm had acted in bad faith when it used Haag Engineering reports to deny policyholder claims, the company’s top claims executive, Susan Q. Hood, imposed a moratorium on work with Haag. The case behind it produced a $13 million judgment over a 1999 tornado claim. Chief Executive Edward B. Rust Jr. admitted under oath that, knowing what he knew then, the company would not have used Haag on Hurricane Katrina assessments. Haag said at the time that its engineers base their opinions on the facts and sound engineering principles. A decade earlier, the Texas Supreme Court had already ruled on the same defense. In State Farm Lloyds v. Nicolau, the court upheld a jury verdict of more than $600,000 and held that a carrier’s reliance on an expert report does not, by itself, shield a denial from a bad faith claim.
The Oklahoma fight is live again. In August 2026, a Comanche County judge unsealed 31 internal State Farm documents in the wind and hail litigation, the records PAG covered in State Farm Hot Documents. The homeowners’ attorneys allege the documents show a coordinated program that cut indemnity payments by $1.4 billion in its first year and saved the company more than $15,000 per denied claim. Those are allegations in active litigation, not findings. State Farm disputes them. The company says it evaluates each claim on the facts of the loss and the coverage purchased, and that it paid more than $1 billion to Oklahoma customers for wind and hail damage over the past two years.
The denial letter often starts with an engineer
Many unpaid claims rest on an engineering report. The carrier hires the firm. The homeowner gets a letter. The letter cites the report. The report lands on a cause the policy excludes: wear and tear, age, faulty installation, long-term deterioration. Three firms appear in the record again and again.
Haag Engineering is the oldest name in the file. This fall, KFOR in Oklahoma City reported that court transcripts in Michael Varner v. State Farm allege State Farm used Haag training materials with its claims staff despite the 20-year moratorium. One sealed exhibit in the case is titled “Video – Haag Education Chapter 1 – Segment 2 – Impact Testing and Hail Definitions.” The homeowners’ attorneys allege the training taught adjusters a narrowed definition of hail damage. State Farm disputes the allegation. The company’s position, as reported in the case coverage, is that Haag Education is a separate company from Haag Engineering and that the moratorium on Haag engineering work stands. No court has ruled on the allegation. The transcripts are allegations with a docket number, and they deserve to be read that way. They also deserve to be read.
Donan Engineering appears in a Colorado federal case, documented in the court file. Donan’s report concluded the roof showed minimal evidence of damage. The carrier, Sentinel, denied the claim on that report. The owners hired a public adjuster, who documented $47,795.50 in damage. State Farm insured another tenant’s part of the same building. State Farm concluded the same hail storm required a full roof replacement. Asked to reinspect, Donan refused. The owners sued both companies. One storm, one roof, two engineering answers. A report is evidence to weigh. It is not a verdict.
Rimkus Consulting Group appears in a 2025 Missouri ruling. In Kar v. Safeco, a federal judge ruled on August 12, 2025 that the homeowners’ breach of contract claim could go to a jury. Safeco’s first inspector found minor wind damage. On reinspection, Rimkus engineer Wesley Hamilton reported old hail damage to metal components and no new hail damage to the home’s clay tiles. The homeowners’ expert found functional hail damage to gutters, downspouts, flashings, and chimney caps, plus new tile damage. The court let the fight proceed. That is how an engineer report should end up: tested, not obeyed.
Nathan Sheppard has worked claims for 17 years. His observation, from his own files: “In 17 years, I have never had a carrier engineer’s report call for a full roof replacement on a claim I worked. The findings land in two places. Either the damage stops just short of the replacement line, or the damage gets ruled not storm related at all.” An engineer report is an opinion from a firm the carrier chose and paid. Florida law treats it that way. It can be challenged with competing evidence, and it should be.
Now read the Isaias numbers again
Hurricane Isaias made landfall on October 9. By October 20, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation counted nearly 55,000 claims filed and insured losses approaching $582 million. Nearly 8,500 claims had already closed without payment. Just over 3,500 had closed with one. About 71 percent of closed Isaias claims closed unpaid. Roughly 43,000 claims remain open, and only 1,454 of them have seen any payment.
The state requires carriers to state a reason when a claim closes unpaid. The top reason is administrative, a bucket that covers withdrawn claims, duplicates, and files where the carrier says it could not reach the homeowner. The second reason is damage below your deductible. The third is flood damage the policy did not cover. Each of those reasons rests on the carrier’s first look at your home. A below-deductible finding rests on the carrier’s scope. An engineer-backed denial rests on a report the carrier bought. Neither one has to be the last word, because Florida law gives you time and a path to answer it.
What to do if your Isaias claim closed unpaid
- October 9, 2027: the last day to report a new Isaias claim under Florida law.
- April 9, 2028: the last day to reopen or supplement an Isaias claim.
- Request your complete claim file, including any engineer report, the field notes, the photos, and every draft.
- Document your damage now with dated photos, and keep receipts for every repair.
- Get an independent inspection before you accept a below-deductible answer.
- Do not sign a release or a final settlement until your file gets a second look.
This is where we help. Policyholder Advocacy Group represents the policyholder and never the insurance company. We inspect the whole property, document the full loss, and build the claim your policy actually covers. If an engineer report sits in your file, we read it line by line and answer it with documented evidence from your property. We handle the carrier, the paperwork, and the follow up, so the claim stops running your life. And we work to get you the maximum amount owed to you under the terms and conditions of your policy.
For residential claims, Florida caps the fee at 10% during the first year after a state of emergency declaration. And 10% of nothing is nothing. Without representation, many homeowners walk away with far less or nothing at all. Ian’s count says 191,000 homeowners already know how that feels.
If your insurer closed your Isaias claim with no payment, or an engineer report decided your claim before anyone weighed your damage, call before you sign anything. Call 800.511.2240 or book your Free 21-Point Storm Inspection.