Whenever I see a push to “standardize” something in the claims process, I pay attention. Not because standards are bad, but because who writes the standards often determines who wins the dispute. Insurance companies have an army of insurance lobbyists, and when I see them writing something about an esoteric issue such as forensic engineering standards, I can guess whose agenda is being pushed.

Insurance industry lobbyist Lisa Miller wrote an article about the recent discussion coming out of Florida regarding proposed rules for forensic engineers. The Florida Board of Professional Engineers is considering a new rule chapter governing how engineers prepare damage evaluation reports used in insurance claims and litigation. On its face, this sounds like a good idea. Who could be against ethical, accurate, and well-supported engineering opinions?

But as with most things in the insurance world, the devil is not in the headline but in the details. There is no question that problems exist in forensic engineering. The issue is not imaginary. Engineers, like lawyers and adjusters, are sometimes accused of acting more like advocates than neutral professionals. Reports can vary widely. Courts frequently see two qualified engineers look at the same roof and reach completely opposite conclusions. That inconsistency frustrates everyone involved.

Douglas Quinn started the American Policyholders Association after being a victim of outcome-oriented insurance expert reports from Superstorm Sandy in 2012. I warned about this in a 2009 blog post titled Insurance Company Experts Are Often Biased and Outcome Oriented. I more recently addressed the issue in Can Policyholders Trust Insurance Company Retained Experts?

So, it should not be surprising that another state studied this exact issue. A 2006 Colorado task force studying forensic engineering found that expert reports were increasingly becoming advocacy pieces rather than objective analyses. The engineering community itself acknowledged that something needed improvement.

What Colorado ultimately concluded is instructive, and I suggest that it should be considered by Florida’s professional engineering community. Rather than imposing rigid, prescriptive rules, it emphasized ethics, which includes objectivity, independence, and reliance on sound scientific principles while preserving professional judgment. The reasoning was simple: engineering, especially forensic engineering, cannot be reduced to a checklist. Every structure, every storm, and every failure scenario is different.

That brings us back to Florida. The proposed rules being discussed are not merely about ethics. They go much further. They impose detailed requirements, mandatory documentation, and specific methodologies. They appear to transform engineering from a profession grounded in judgment into one governed by compliance. My suspicion is that the insurance lobby and routinely retained insurance company engineers are pushing this agenda.

That shift and who is pushing it matters. When you convert professional judgment into regulatory checklists, you are not just improving consistency. Instead, you are controlling outcomes. The question becomes whose outcomes are being pushed?

Large engineering firms, many of which regularly work for insurance companies taking in tens of millions of dollars and, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars after any major catastrophe, are well-positioned to absorb these requirements. They already operate with standardized processes, internal compliance systems, and significant resources.

Independent engineers, on the other hand, often working for policyholders or entities not even involved in the insurance claims space, may find these rules costly, burdensome, and in some cases, impossible to satisfy. This is especially true when the documentation simply does not exist for older structures. This economic reality about the engineering opinions costing more to fit checklists alone should give pause.

There is also a deeper scientific issue lurking beneath the surface. Much of the debate centers on how damage is evaluated and appears to particularly center on roof damage. Some engineers rely heavily on laboratory testing and code-based thresholds to argue that certain wind speeds cannot cause damage. Others point out what seems obvious to anyone who has spent time in the real world: roofs age, materials degrade, installation varies, and storms are not neat, controlled laboratory events. Wind is turbulent, cyclical, and sustained over time. All of us in the field have seen wind damage that a laboratory or code says cannot happen with lower wind speeds. I guess we cannot believe our lying eyes.

In other words, real-world conditions rarely resemble laboratory conditions.

If new rules elevate standardized testing and “approved methods” above professional judgment, they risk favoring simplified models over complex reality. That does not necessarily produce more accurate conclusions. Instead, it produces more consistent ones. Consistency is different from truth.

There is another consequence that has not received enough attention. These rules effectively shift power away from the courts. Traditionally, disputes over engineering opinions are resolved through testimony, cross-examination, and credibility determinations under evidentiary standards like Daubert. Judges and juries weigh competing opinions. Under the proposed framework, an engineer could present a report that is accepted in court, yet still face disciplinary action for failing to comply with a regulatory checklist. That creates a parallel system in which compliance may matter more than correctness.

The Colorado task force warned about this kind of overreach. Attempts to rigidly define standards of care can “open up a Pandora’s box” and restrict experts in ways that ultimately undermine justice rather than promote it. Engineering, like law, requires flexibility because facts vary. A one-size-fits-all rule rarely fits anyone well.

None of this is to say that reform is unnecessary. There are bad reports. There are exaggerated claims. There are, at times, opinions that stretch beyond what the evidence supports. But the cure should not be worse than the disease.

The real issue is not whether standards should exist. It is who defines them and how they are applied. If standards become so rigid that they eliminate independent judgment, increase costs for policyholders, and disproportionately benefit the repeat players in the insurance claims industry, then we are no longer talking about improving engineering. We are talking about reshaping the playing field.

This is a conversation worth having openly and not quietly in some rule making committee. That is why I am writing this blog. The question I would pose to regulators, engineers, and policymakers is simple:

Are we trying to improve the search for truth, or are we trying to standardize the outcome?

Those are not the same thing.

The public comment deadline is March 31, 2026, and I will send this blog post for consideration. If you want to submit a public comment about this important issue, please email your comments directly to Board@fbpe.org. You can submit your comments to proposed Chapter 61G15-38, Damaged Structures, using the Florida Board of Engineering’s online comment form.

Thought For The Day

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald