Final Package Checklist
What belongs in the final package delivered at the end of a claim or appraisal assignment, and the review pass to run before it leaves your office.
The package is what your client keeps
Everything else you did is internal. The final package is the artifact that outlives the assignment: it is what gets forwarded, filed, quoted back to you, and occasionally produced in litigation. It should be complete enough to stand on its own and organized enough that someone who was not there can follow it.
Cover and identification
- Claim number, policy number, and your own file reference
- Named insured and property address
- Date of loss and cause of loss
- Your role in the matter, stated plainly
- Date of the package and the period it covers
Narrative
- How the assignment came to you and what you were asked to do
- Inspection date, attendees, and conditions
- Observed conditions, described independently of the conclusion
- The basis for the scope you reached
- Items in dispute, and each party's position on them
- Your conclusion, and what it does and does not address
Supporting documentation
- Estimate, with price list and date identified
- Photograph sets, labeled and organized by elevation, roof section, and room
- Diagrams, sketches, and measurements
- Instrument readings, with the instrument identified
- Relevant correspondence, in date order
- Prior estimates and reports considered
- Award or agreement document, where one exists
Review pass before delivery
Run this pass on every package. It takes ten minutes and catches the errors that are expensive later.
- Does every photograph in the package belong to this claim?
- Is every photograph legible at the size it will be viewed?
- Does the narrative match the estimate line for line where it refers to scope?
- Are the claim number, insured name, and date of loss correct on every page that carries them?
- Does the package contain any internal note, draft, or comment that was not meant to leave?
- Does it contain personal information beyond what the recipient needs?
- Is the delivery method appropriate for the sensitivity of the contents?
- Is the date of delivery recorded on the file?
After delivery
- Record proof and date of delivery on the file
- Issue the invoice, referencing the same file identifiers
- Set the retention date
- Close the file with its activity history intact rather than archiving the documents alone