Property Claims Handling & Damage Expert

Specialties & Experience of this Expert Witness

Additional Information

Mr. Scarborough is a property insurance claims and damage-assessment professional based in Houston, Texas, available to policyholder and insurer counsel. His work focuses on first-party residential and commercial property losses, including claims-handling practices and standards, damage assessment and causation issues within property-claims expertise, claim-file review, scope and estimate analysis, appraisal matters, and disputed amount-of-loss questions. His experience spans the property claims operation. He began property inspection and claims-related work in 2017 and licensed adjusting in 2019, with assignments as a field adjuster, desk adjuster, and file reviewer / QA specialist. These rotating, deployment-based roles gave him direct experience with how property claims are inspected, estimated, documented, paid, supplemented, and reviewed within carrier and industry workflows. Mr. Scarborough has conducted thousands of residential and commercial inspections and damage assessments involving wind, hail, hurricane, flood, fire, water, and other property loss perils. His catastrophe and severe-weather experience includes hurricanes, floods, derechos, wildfires, hailstorms, structure fires, and water losses across the United States, Canada, and Australia, including work for national and regional carriers. He prepares and reviews damage estimates in Xactimate and Cotality (formerly Symbility), addressing scope, quantity, line-item selection, pricing, depreciation, ACV/RCV valuation, and repair-versus-replacement questions. His file-review and QA background includes estimate accuracy, documentation sufficiency, repair-methodology support, scope omissions, unsupported items, quantity issues, and pricing issues. That experience supports review of claims-practice and standard-of-care issues in disputed property claim matters. He serves as an appraiser in property insurance losses, developing independent, evidence-based positions on disputed amount-of-loss questions. His appraisal work includes disputed-item organization, amount-of-loss analysis, competing-estimate reconciliation, itemized scope review, and evaluation of appraisable scope, quantity, pricing, depreciation, access, repair methodology, and repair-versus-replacement issues when supported by the record and within the assignment. As a party-appointed appraiser, he advocates only for positions the evidence supports. He is also a certified property loss umpire and is available for neutral umpire appointments, applying strict neutrality and deciding submitted disputes on the evidence rather than party preference. His methodology emphasizes role definition, materials-reviewed discipline, evidence chronologies, estimate comparisons, photograph and measurement review, line-item analysis, and separation of observed facts, assumptions, inferences, professional opinions, legal / coverage questions, and issues requiring engineering or other specialized expertise. His opinions are sourced to the claim record and developed from sufficient facts and data, reliable property-claims and estimating methods, and reliable application to the specific loss. Mr. Scarborough is licensed in Texas, New York, and more than 30 additional states. His credentials include HAAG Certified Inspector, Xactimate Level II, NFIP / FEMA flood credentials, P.L.A.N. Certified Property Loss Appraiser and Umpire, IAUA Certified Property Appraiser, Louisiana Registered Appraiser & Umpire, Iowa Registered Appraiser, and FAA Part 107 licensed. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as a Navy nuclear engineering officer aboard a submarine. That background informs his approach to technical precision, procedural discipline, documentation, and evidence-based property claims analysis. SEAK trained and available for consulting, non-testifying, and testifying assignments. Fee schedule and materials-relied-upon information can be supplied as required by rule, court order, or engagement.