Who Actually Cut Your Estimate? Desk Reviews Explained

Who reviews my estimate is a fair question, and the answer can be more than one person. A field adjuster inspects the property and writes or receives an estimate. Before payment is released, a reviewer can read the same file again and re-price it.

Insurers review claim files. Virginia has a statute that speaks to part of what an insurer must disclose when it reduces its own adjuster's estimate. It is narrower than most people expect, and it is worth reading precisely.

What follows covers who can read a mitigation estimate, what documents sit behind a mitigation scope, and what Va. Code § 38.2-510(D) says. Two plain-words definitions to start with: mitigation is the emergency phase, the extraction, demolition and drying done to stop the damage spreading, and a scope is the written list of rooms, materials and tasks the work is priced from. One boundary first: Restoration Doctor is a restoration contractor, not a public adjuster and not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice or insurance advice, and nothing here interprets your policy.

A field inspection and a desk review are two different jobs on the same claim. The field visit produces a record of the building: what was wet, how far the water traveled, what was cut out, what equipment was set and for how long. A desk review produces an opinion about that record. Nobody on the review side stood in the room.

A desk review works only from what was uploaded. Documentation that records the decisions made on the job is what a reviewer can see. What that record should contain is set out in what a drying file contains; the short version is below.

The reviewer may sit inside the insurance company or may be engaged by it. Either way the review is a step in the insurer's own handling of the claim, and it happens before payment rather than after.

Described generically, and with no claim about anybody's reasons, a mitigation scope draws on the same small set of items. Each one has a document behind it.

A scope item visible in a dated photograph and backed by a moisture reading is documented differently from one that appears only as a code on an estimate. Restoration Doctor invoices the property owner and provides documentation you may share with your insurer. Your insurer alone decides what it approves and pays.

Virginia's unfair claim settlement statute carries a disclosure provision that attaches at a dollar figure the statute picks itself, and the wording matters more than the headline.

Va. Code § 38.2-510(D) begins: “When reducing a loss estimate of $3,000 or more, no insurer shall alter or amend an insurance adjuster's estimate of damages, photographic report data, or narrative report without…” Three conditions then follow, and the statute joins them with “and,” not “or.”

Clause (ii) requires more than a reason. It requires a detailed list of all changes and the identity of the person who made or ordered each one. Clause (iii) adds a retention duty: every version of the report is kept, and each version carries the identity of whoever changed it.

Read the object of that sentence closely. The subsection governs what an insurer may do to “an insurance adjuster's estimate of damages, photographic report data, or narrative report.” That is the insurer's own work product on the claim.

The subsection's text does not refer to a restoration contractor's estimate. The words contractor and contractor's do not appear anywhere in the section.

The subsection also sets no deadline of its own. It states what must accompany the reduced report. It does not create a day count.

This is the honest caveat, and it travels with the statute wherever the statute is quoted. Subsection (B) of the same section says: “No violation of this section shall of itself be deemed to create any cause of action in favor of any person other than the Commission; but nothing in this subsection shall impair the right of any person to seek redress at law or equity for any conduct for which action may be brought.” Two things follow. A violation of the section is not by itself a private lawsuit, and the enforcer the statute names is the Commission, meaning Virginia's State Corporation Commission and its Bureau of Insurance. The subsection also preserves whatever other rights already exist, and the question of what is otherwise actionable belongs to a lawyer, not to a contractor.

On the regulation side, 14VAC5-400-25 sets the compliance standard for the claims practices chapter: “It shall be a violation of this chapter if any person: 1. Willfully violates any provision of this chapter; or 2. Commits a violation of any provision of this chapter with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice.” A single willful violation of that chapter is enough on its own terms, and a pattern is the alternative route rather than the only one. The Bureau of Insurance publishes how to file a complaint and states on that page that it does not accept complaints by phone or email.

Two further Virginia rules concern the insurer's claim file: it has to be detailed enough to permit reconstruction of the insurer's activities, and a denial has to be explained in writing (14VAC5-400-30 and 14VAC5-400-70, linked in the last section). This post stays on the narrower question of who made a change.

There is a published industry answer, and it is worth reading before assuming a reviewer's opinion settles a scope.

The Restoration Industry Association, the trade body for restoration contractors, has released a series of peer-reviewed position statements. Its public announcement of the first statement says that “third parties cannot unilaterally dictate restoration procedures, scope, price, or billing,” and that “[a]bsent a direct contract with an insurer, restoration contractors are under no legal obligation to an insurer, its adjuster, or a third party.” The same announcement puts the point flatly: “The insurer's consultant's opinions are not binding on the restorer.”

That announcement summarizes two further positions in the series. Restorers are under no obligation to modify a scope of work at a third party's request unless and until the restorer expressly agrees to a change order. And restorers are not required to provide equipment ownership information, or any documentation, to a third party unless they have agreed to do so in a binding contract. The statements themselves sit behind a member login on the association's website, so the language quoted here comes from the public announcements rather than the member documents.

On pricing, the association's statement titled Deviation from Standardized Price Lists is summarized in a public announcement the same way. It states that “[e]ach contractor determines their own retail labor rate — not the insurer or its partners,” that standardized prices “are merely reference points… The data is purely historical and because of this, standardized price lists lag behind actual market prices,” and that “[i]nsurers that don't allow for deviation from standardized prices are not using pricing software as it is intended and are at risk of not honoring their responsibilities under the contract of insurance.”

None of that is law, and it is not offered here as law. It is the published position of the industry's own association. What governs the work is the written agreement between the contractor and the property owner.

Restoration Doctor's role is the record of the work: the scope, the readings, the logs and the photographs that let somebody else check the work. We invoice the property owner and, at the owner's request, share those records with the insurer. Restoration Doctor does not negotiate or settle claims and cannot do so by law.

Questions about the amount of a loss or about what a policy covers are not for a contractor. Coverage depends on your policy and your insurer's decision. Questions about coverage belong with your insurer, your agent, or a licensed public adjuster or attorney.

Every Virginia rule quoted above is linked to its own text below. Read the section rather than a summary of it, including this one. Each page was read on September 21, 2026.