What Your Appraiser Will Need From You

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Property owners sometimes assume that once an appraiser is retained, the process runs largely on its own. In practice, an appraiser depends on a fairly specific set of documents and access from the party who hired them, and gathering these items early tends to shorten the overall timeline noticeably.

The insurance policy itself, in full, including all endorsements and declarations pages, is the starting point. An appraiser needs to see the actual appraisal clause language, the coverage limits, and any relevant endorsements that might affect how depreciation, replacement cost, or specific categories of damage are handled. A policy summary or a portion pulled from an online portal is rarely sufficient, since the details that matter most, such as the exact wording of the appraisal clause, are often found in an endorsement rather than the main body of the policy.

Claim correspondence and any existing estimates come next. This includes the carrier’s estimate, any estimate prepared by a contractor or public adjuster on the policyholder’s behalf, photographs from prior inspections, and any written communication where positions on scope or pricing have already been exchanged. Even when a party disagrees strongly with a prior estimate, that document still gives the appraiser a starting map of where the disagreement actually lies, which line items are contested, and which are not.

Physical access to the property, on a schedule that works for everyone involved, is essential and often the single item most likely to delay a claim if it is not arranged promptly. This includes access to attics, crawl spaces, roofs, and any interior areas affected by the loss, along with permission to take measurements and photographs. In cold climates, seasonal access can matter as well, since roof inspections and certain exterior measurements are safer and more accurate outside of icy conditions, which sometimes affects how quickly an inspection can realistically be scheduled during a Minnesota winter.

A property owner should also expect to answer factual questions about the timeline of the loss, any repairs already completed, and any contractor proposals already obtained, even informally. None of this requires the owner to have technical construction knowledge, only accurate recollection and a willingness to share documents as they exist, including ones that might seem unfavorable to their position. An incomplete record volunteered piecemeal over months tends to slow an appraisal down considerably more than a complete but imperfect record shared all at once near the beginning. Finally, clear instructions about decision-making authority help the process move efficiently. If more than one person owns the property or has a stake in the outcome, the appraiser needs to know, early, who is authorized to approve an umpire candidate, accept a settlement, or make other binding decisions on the file, so that time is not lost later tracking down approvals that could have been clarified at the outset. Receipts and invoices from any completed repair work deserve particular attention, even for work performed under emergency conditions such as tarping a damaged roof or boarding up a broken window immediately after a storm. These early, often modest expenditures can become relevant later if the extent or timing of the original damage is questioned, since a dated invoice for temporary protective measures corroborates both when the damage occurred and how extensive it appeared to be at that time. Property owners who keep a simple folder, physical or digital, of every document connected to the loss from the earliest days forward tend to find the appraisal process considerably smoother than those who begin assembling records only after an appraiser has already been retained.

General education only: the appraisal process described here can vary by state and policy language, and nothing in this article is legal advice.

Russ Lis works nationwide as a property insurance appraiser and umpire, based in Minnesota. Contact Appraisal Resolution.