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The estimate came back, and half of it reads like code. RCV, ACV, non-recoverable depreciation, O&P, line items priced to the penny for work nobody explained. Below are the terms that actually decide the dollar figure on a covered loss, and what each one is really arguing about.
Strip away the vocabulary, and disagreements over the amount of a covered loss come down to three arguments. Scope. Price. Depreciation.
Scope comes first. Is the item part of the loss at all? When a carrier estimate repairs two slopes and a contractor estimate replaces the roof, they disagree about the list, not the price.
The second argument is price. Both sides can agree that the hallway drywall comes out and still land a long way apart on what hanging and finishing it costs in Delaware County.
Then depreciation, the one people miss. Everyone agrees on the item and the price. The argument is how much of that item's life had already been spent the day the storm came through.
Hold your estimate against those three, and it stops being a wall of numbers. Each one is a different kind of disagreement, and each gets resolved a different way.
This is an informational overview of terms found in most Ohio property policies. It isn't legal advice, and your policy's exact language controls. Ironclad Assessment Group serves as a neutral appraiser and umpire. We're not a public adjuster, and we don't adjust, negotiate, interpret your policy, or settle claims.
Replacement cost value, printed as RCV, is what the work costs to do now. Today's shingles and today's crew, nothing subtracted for age.
Subtract the used-up value from that, and you have actual cash value, ACV on the estimate, though how your policy defines it is worth reading for yourself. A roof installed in 2005 isn't worth what a brand-new one costs. ACV tries to say what it was worth the morning of the storm.
Depreciation is that subtraction. It's built from the item's age against how long that kind of item is expected to last. A twelve-year-old roof on a thirty-year product takes a bigger haircut than a two-year-old one. The arithmetic looks objective. Often it isn't, because the inputs (the life expectancy assigned, the condition somebody recorded) are judgment calls.
What catches homeowners is the first check. On a replacement cost policy, that payment is commonly the ACV figure, with depreciation held back until the repair is done and documented. That withheld amount is recoverable depreciation, and policies commonly put a time limit on it.
Non-recoverable depreciation doesn't come back. Some policies and some categories of property are written on an actual cash value basis with no second payment behind them. Older roofs are the common example. Whether yours holds depreciation back, and whether it can be recovered, depends on the policy language and its endorsements.
Set those two numbers against the three arguments. An RCV that comes up short is a scope or price problem. If the RCV is sound and the ACV still lands low, you're arguing depreciation.
Scope of loss is the list. Every damaged item and every task required to put it back. It's where most disputes begin, because an item that never makes the list never gets priced.
One entry on that list is a line item. Detach and reset a gutter run. Replace a square of laminated shingles. Software carries thousands of them, each wanting a quantity.
Attached to each is a unit price, what that one thing costs here, this quarter, at this year's material and labor rates. A price can be corrected when the real job doesn't match what the database assumed.
Scope and price get blurred constantly. "The estimate is too low" can mean the price per square is behind the market. It can also mean the decking under those shingles never made the list. Same complaint, opposite fix. One is answered with cost data, the other by walking the roof.
Overhead and profit, written as O&P and often shorthanded as ten and ten, is the general contractor's margin for coordinating a repair that pulls in several trades. Whether it belongs on a given estimate is regularly argued.
Amount of loss is the phrase most policies use, and it's the only thing an appraisal panel decides. What is the covered damage worth? That's the whole assignment.
But coverage is a different question, and appraisal doesn't touch it. Whether an exclusion applies, whether the claim should have been paid at all, that isn't a panel's work. A denied claim can't be revived through appraisal. Denials belong with a policyholder-side insurance attorney, and soon, because the deadlines for legal action keep running.
Causation is the honest gray area. The carrier says the cracked shingles are age and manufacturing defect, not the hailstorm. Is that an argument about the amount or about coverage? One view treats sorting storm damage from other damage as part of valuing the loss. The other treats it as a coverage call a panel has no business making. There isn't one settled answer, and where the line falls can turn on the policy's wording and the facts of the file. That's a conversation for an attorney.
An appraiser here is the person each side names to value the loss. Not a real estate appraiser. Different work entirely, and the two get confused constantly.
Your policy probably asks for one who's competent and impartial. Some policies say disinterested. Competent means they can accurately value the damage in front of them, which on a hail claim means knowing roofs and local install costs. Impartial means no stake in what the number turns out to be, so ask how anyone is paid before you appoint them. Pay that rises with the award creates a stake in the result.
The umpire enters when the two appraisers can't close the gap. They usually pick one together, and if they can't agree, the policy provides a fallback. The umpire decides only what's still in dispute. Whatever the two already settled stays settled.
A public adjuster is doing a different job. They work for the policyholder, preparing and presenting the claim and advocating for that client. In Ohio, public adjusters are licensed by the state, and the work takes real skill. An appraiser values the loss instead and holds no stake in the outcome, which is what makes the award hold up. If you need somebody to handle the claim with your carrier, that's a public adjuster.
The appraisal clause is the paragraph that creates all of this. It usually sits in the Conditions section, it's short, and it sets how many days each side gets to name an appraiser and who picks the umpire if the two can't agree. Twenty days is a common figure, but your clause is the one that counts.
What starts it is a demand for appraisal. Brief. The claim number, plus a sentence invoking the appraisal provision to resolve the amount of loss. Send it in a way you can prove.
An award ends it. Under most policy language, an award signed by any two of the three panel members (the two appraisers, or one appraiser and the umpire) sets the amount of loss. A well-built award breaks the figure out by category, so it's clear what the number covers.
If you're weighing an appraisal demand, here's what we do as appraiser and umpire.
RCV is what the repair costs to do today. ACV is that figure with depreciation subtracted for age and condition. On a replacement cost policy, the first payment is commonly the ACV amount, with the held-back depreciation generally payable once the work is done and documented. Your policy controls whether that's how yours works.
That's a scope disagreement, and scope is part of the amount of loss, so it's generally what the appraisal clause was built for. Two caveats. It has to be a covered loss, and if the carrier says those items aren't covered rather than aren't damaged, that's a coverage question appraisal doesn't reach. If the argument is really about whether the storm caused the damage at all, read the causation note above, because that one isn't settled.
Sometimes, and sometimes not. Nobody can honestly promise you one answer here. It depends on your policy's language and on the facts of the file, and there isn't one settled answer to point you to. If your dispute is really about cause, talk with a policyholder-side insurance attorney first.
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