Every roof claim ends one of two ways: a repair or a replacement. Internal State Farm reports, now public as exhibits in an Oklahoma lawsuit, show that the company kept score on that choice. In a June 2021 claims quality report, the ratio of full roof replacements to partial repairs fell from 4.1 to 2.3 in under a year, and the report placed the drop under a heading for quality indicators trending positively. Chip Merlin of the Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog walked through the exhibits on October 22. These are the plaintiffs’ documents. State Farm disputes what they prove, and no court has found bad faith. But the scorecard is State Farm’s own paper, and some of what it counted as positive movement deserves a hard look from anyone holding a roof claim.
The ratio of full roof replacements to partial repairs fell from 4.1 to 2.3 between June 2020 and May 2021, and State Farm’s own report listed the drop under quality indicators trending positively.
Wind and hail estimates over $10,000 fell 13 percent year over year in the same report.
14,402 Hurricane Isaias claims in Florida have closed without payment, out of 68,071 filed statewide, per the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, November 6.
Santa Rosa County filed 31,664 Isaias claims, the highest count in Florida.
If your Isaias roof claim came back as a small repair, or it closed without payment, that ending deserves a documented second look before you accept it as final. Book a Free 21-Point Storm Inspection or call 800.511.2240. We document the full loss and tell you plainly where your claim stands.
A ratio of 4.1 fell to 2.3, and the report called it progress
A ratio of 4.1 means the company approved about four full roof replacements for every one partial repair. At 2.3, it approved a little over two. The ratio itself fell about 44 percent. The June 2021 report, Exhibit 1 in the lawsuit and titled P&C Claims Fire Claim Quality, tracked that shift as a quality result. The same report tracked two more numbers. Estimates in wind and hail payment bands over $10,000 decreased 13 percent year over year, and the ratio of claims closed without payment to reported claims rose in the wind and hail categories.
The oversight behind the numbers ran deep. The report’s dashboards tracked partial and total roof replacements side by side, reviewed monthly in a system called MyBlock. Meetings with claims consultants reviewed roof decisions that had been overturned, with the stated goal of consistency across adjusters.
Merlin asks the question these numbers raise. If a roof is badly damaged, a full replacement is the correct outcome, and a repair is the error. So why would fewer replacements, smaller estimates, and more unpaid closures read as better claims handling? A lower payment is not proof of better adjusting, and neither is a higher one. The honest measure is whether the policyholder got everything the policy owed on a full and fair look at the damage. The exhibits do not answer that question. They show which numbers the system watched.
The adjuster on your roof may not be the person who decides
The same report describes manager authority stepping into roof calls. Team manager approval was required in wind scenarios below 50 miles per hour and in hail scenarios with stones smaller than one inch. Managers also intervened on total roof replacements that involved small hail or light wind. That structure raises a plain question for any policyholder. If the adjuster who climbed your roof believed it needed full replacement, did that call survive the review above them, and who made the final decision? The exhibits describe the structure. Your claim file is where your answer sits.
This scorecard comes from the same lawsuit as the first set of unsealed records we covered in our breakdown of the 31 unsealed State Farm hot documents, where full roof replacements needed extra manager sign-off and repairs did not. Whether a manager or a model shaped your claim is a fair question, and your claim file is where the answer lives.
A 2020 draft plan proposed that 35 to 40 percent of claims get no human at all
The second exhibit, Exhibit 2 in the case file, is a September 2020 executive presentation on a proposed operating model. It was marked as a draft for discussion, and nothing in it proves the targets were adopted. The draft proposed more than 80 percent of coverage decisions made at initial triage, before a full investigation. It proposed 35 to 40 percent of claims handled without human intervention, 40 percent of damage evaluations done virtually, and 95 percent of repairs directed through virtual or preferred vendor options.
The draft also contemplated leadership review when a claim decision fell outside the range a model recommended, as part of what it called outcome-based claim handling. And it projected expense and efficiency improvements of $218 million to $300 million in a first phase and $325 million to $500 million in a later one. Merlin is careful with those figures, and we will be too. They are expense and efficiency goals. They are not proof the company took that money out of claim payments, and we do not present them that way. The same draft listed Pay What We Owe as a strategic goal. The quality report that followed a year later is the document built around monthly dashboard review, and its dashboards tracked the replacement ratio. Both facts sit in the same paper trail. Readers can weigh them side by side.
What these documents do not prove
Read the paper straight. These exhibits come from the plaintiffs in a pending bad faith case, West v. State Farm in Oklahoma. State Farm disputes the allegations. The company says it has paid more than $1 billion to Oklahoma customers for wind and hail damage over the past two years, and it strongly disagrees with broad claims that mischaracterize how we serve customers. No judge has found that State Farm acted in bad faith, and the release of these records is not a verdict. The 2020 operating model was a proposal on paper, not proof of what any adjuster did on any claim. The lead trial is set for February 1 to 12, 2027, and that is where the proof gets tested. We report documents as documents. Allegations stay labeled as allegations.
Florida has 14,402 Isaias claims already closed without payment
Now set the Oklahoma paper next to Florida’s numbers. 68,071 Hurricane Isaias claims have been filed statewide, and 14,402 of them have already closed without payment, per the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. 28,458 claims remain open. Santa Rosa County alone filed 31,664 claims, the most of any county in the state. You can see every figure in one place in our Hurricane Isaias claims by the numbers tracker.
Nobody can honestly say a scorecard in Oklahoma closed a claim in Pensacola. That is not the claim here. The fair point is narrower. When a carrier’s own quality report tracks a rising closed-without-payment share next to a falling replacement ratio, a Florida homeowner whose claim closed at zero is entitled to ask hard questions about how that decision was made. Four questions worth asking about your own file:
- Who made the final call on your claim, the adjuster who saw your property or someone above them?
- Was the first decision reviewed or changed by a manager after the inspection?
- Was your damage evaluated in person, or from photos and a screen?
- What wind speed did the carrier record for your property, and did that number send your claim to a manager?
One caution belongs here. This scorecard is from 2021, and nobody has published proof that the same dashboard still runs in 2026. We do not claim it does. The decision in front of you is being made now, though, and these are questions that decision should have to answer. Florida law still gives you time to act on them:
- October 9, 2027 is the last day to report a Hurricane Isaias claim under Florida Statute 627.70132.
- April 9, 2028 is the last day to reopen or supplement an Isaias claim.
How we help, in plain terms
How can you help me? We review the carrier’s decision on your claim and check it against the damage at your property, not against a dashboard.
What can you do? A Free 21-Point Storm Inspection documents the full loss at your home or building, including a commercial roof or a condominium association property. We build the claim record, handle the paperwork, and deal with the carrier’s adjuster and managers so you do not have to fight that system alone.
Why you? The adjuster the carrier sends represents the carrier. A public adjuster represents the policyholder. Policyholder Advocacy Group has stood on the policyholder’s side since 2012, and Nathan Sheppard brings 17 years of claims experience to your file. That split decides what your file holds.
How do you make my life easier? One call starts it. We carry the claim work and give you plain updates in words a homeowner can use.
How do you get me the maximum amount owed? We document everything the storm did and press the claim for the full 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.
If your roof claim ended as a patch when the damage called for a roof, or it closed without payment, get a second set of eyes on it. Book a Free 21-Point Storm Inspection or call 800.511.2240.
Sources: Chip Merlin, Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog, State Farm’s Claims Scorecard, October 22, 2026, and the companion post of October 21, 2026, both reporting on exhibits in West v. State Farm. Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Hurricane Isaias claim counts, November 6, 2026.