The letter sounds routine. Your insurance company is sending an engineer to inspect the damage. Many owners hear science, certainty, and a fair answer. Read the moment with more care. The signed report can become the paper reason a claim gets paid, reduced, closed, or placed below the deductible.
Start with the name of the firm and the name of the engineer who signs the report. Three firms have public records every Florida owner should know: Haag Engineering, Rimkus, and Donan. This article does not decide whether any one report got a property right or wrong. It lays out what juries found, what courts ruled, what active lawsuits allege, and what reporters documented. The Ian and Isaias record shows why those labels matter.
The record a skimmer should see first
The Washington Post documented Ian cases in which payments ran 45 to 97 percent below field estimates. CBS and other reporters then put names, files, and sworn accounts behind the pattern. The older court record reaches further back.
- An Oklahoma jury found State Farm acted in bad faith when it used Haag Engineering reports to deny policyholder claims.
- The case behind that finding produced a $13 million judgment over a 1999 tornado claim.
- State Farm’s top claims executive then imposed a moratorium on work with Haag.
- CBS’s 60 Minutes reported that adjuster Jordan Lee said 44 of his 46 Ian reports were changed after submission, always down.
- One estimate Lee wrote at $488,000 came back at $13,000.
Heritage Property and Casualty disputed the Ian reporting. The company called it flat wrong and said its review of 10,000 Ian claims found 4,162 reports revised down, 2,583 revised up, and about 3,311 unchanged. That response belongs in the record too. It does not erase the need to read your own report closely.
An engineer report is evidence, not the verdict
The carrier hires the engineering firm. The carrier then decides the claim. Those two steps are not the same. A report gives the carrier an expert opinion it can use. It does not force the carrier to deny you, and it does not force you to accept the first conclusion.
That distinction matters because many claim fights are not about whether damage exists. They are about what caused the damage, how much of the property it touched, and whether the cause falls inside the policy. A careful owner asks a simple question when the report arrives. What did the engineer actually inspect, measure, test, and photograph, and what conclusion did the carrier draw from it?
Haag Engineering: a jury finding, a moratorium, and a live allegation
The legal warning label is older than the moratorium. In State Farm Lloyds v. Nicolau, the Texas Supreme Court decided the issue in 1997. State Farm argued that its reliance on a Haag Engineering report kept the denial from being bad faith as a matter of law. The Texas Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict of more than $600,000 for the policyholders. The court rejected the idea that reliance on an expert report, by itself, ends the bad faith question when evidence raises doubt about how the report was prepared or whether the reliance was reasonable.
Nine years later, an Oklahoma jury found that State Farm had acted in bad faith when it used Haag reports to deny policyholder claims. The case produced the $13 million judgment. Susan Q. Hood, then a top State Farm claims executive, imposed a moratorium on work with Haag in June 2006. Chief Executive Edward B. Rust Jr. admitted under oath that the company would not have used Haag for Hurricane Katrina assessments based on what he knew then. Haag said its engineers base their opinions on facts and sound engineering principles.
The story returned in October 2026. KFOR in Oklahoma City reported that court transcripts in Michael Varner v. State Farm allege State Farm used Haag training materials with claims staff despite the 20-year moratorium. The homeowners’ attorneys allege that the training narrowed how staff read hail damage. KFOR described one exhibit as a Haag Education video segment on impact testing and hail definitions. No court has ruled on that training allegation.
State Farm gives a different account, as reported in the case coverage. The company says Haag Education is a separate company from Haag Engineering, and the moratorium on Haag engineering work stands. Read the allegation and the response side by side. That is the point of this page. The public record gives you a reason to ask harder questions. It does not answer those questions for your roof.
Donan: one storm, two opposite answers
The next record sits in a Colorado federal court file. It is not a jury verdict against Donan, and this article does not present it as one.
Donan concluded that a roof showed minimal evidence of damage. Sentinel denied the claim based on that report. The owners hired a public adjuster. A public adjuster documented $47,795.50 in damage on the same building. State Farm insured another tenant’s portion of the same building. State Farm concluded that the same hail storm required a full roof replacement.
The court file also says Donan refused a request to reinspect. The owners then sued Sentinel and Donan. The filed record does not prove that Donan’s report was false. It proves something narrower and still important. Two records can look at one storm and reach opposite results. When that happens, the carrier’s report should not be the only record in the file.
Rimkus: a judge let the expert fight move forward
In Kar v. Safeco, the first inspector found minor wind damage. The homeowners asked for a reinspection. Safeco retained Wesley Hamilton of Rimkus. Hamilton reported old hail damage to metal components and no new hail damage to the home’s clay tiles.
The homeowners’ expert reached a different result. That expert found functional hail damage to gutters, downspouts, flashings, and chimney caps, plus new tile damage. On August 12, 2025, a federal judge let the homeowners’ breach of contract claim move toward a jury. The ruling did not declare Rimkus wrong. It refused to end the case on the paper record alone. That is how a disputed engineering opinion should be treated. It can be tested.
The pattern is in the cause the report chooses
A broken shingle, cracked tile, lifted membrane, or wet ceiling does not end the inquiry. The report still has to name a cause. That choice can decide the claim. Policies pay for covered causes of loss. They often do not pay for age, wear and tear, deterioration, or faulty installation. A report may instead point to thermal expansion and contraction, long-term water entry, maintenance, or foot traffic on a tile roof.
Those words matter because they map the visible damage to a noncovered or excluded cause. The owner sees storm damage. The report gives the same condition an older and slower story. The carrier then relies on that story to reduce or deny payment. A ceiling stain that begins as a roof leak can become a dispute about age and upkeep before anyone prices the full repair.
Nathan Sheppard has worked insurance claims for 17 years. His observation comes from the claims he has worked, and he states it plainly: “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.” His files also show repeated findings built on age, wear and tear, thermal movement, and foot traffic. Treat that as one experienced policyholder advocate’s observation, not as a court finding. Then compare it with the report in your own file.
What to do when the engineer is coming, or the report is already in
A report that supports a below-deductible position raises the same issues covered in PAG’s guide to what an insurer may say about your claim. A report that closes the file raises the issues in the guide to what a denied claim means. Do not wait for the carrier to frame the record first.
- Get the full signed report. Ask for the field notes, photos, measurements, and any draft or revised version in the claim file.
- Write down the engineer’s name, firm, and license information. Keep the appointment notice and the carrier letter with the report.
- Photograph the same areas yourself. Use dated photos and wide shots that show where each close view sits in the room, slope, or system.
- Do not let the carrier’s report stand as the only record. Save repair bids, invoices, weather records, and your own timeline of the loss.
- Watch the dates. Report an Isaias claim by October 9, 2027. Reopen or add to an Isaias claim by April 9, 2028.
- Get a second set of eyes before you accept the outcome. Book a Free 21-Point Storm Inspection and ask for that review before you sign a release or treat a low payment as final.
How PAG answers a report without guessing
Policyholder Advocacy Group represents the policyholder and never the insurance company. We inspect the property, document the full loss, and compare the signed report with the conditions on site. We identify who signed the report, what that person inspected, which areas were photographed, and which conclusions need more support. We then present your documented evidence under the terms and conditions of your policy.
That work answers the questions owners bring to us. We can help by giving the claim a complete record. We can inspect, document, organize the file, meet the carrier’s adjuster, and follow the claim through its deadlines. You get one point of contact instead of a call center and a stack of letters. Our job is to pursue the maximum amount owed under the terms and conditions of your policy, based on documented damage rather than a single outside opinion.
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.
If your insurer has already hired Haag, Rimkus, or Donan, or if your claim was decided on the strength of one engineer report, do not sign away the file before it gets a second look. Call 800.511.2240 or book your Free 21-Point Storm Inspection.