The insured's expert and the insurer's adjuster: who is the person valuing your loss working for?

The costliest misunderstanding after a loss is to assume the expert who turns up is there for you. Until the policyholder appoints someone, the whole discussion runs on a single figure produced by one side.

1. Three experts, three jobs

Claims handling in Morocco sits within the framework of the Moroccan insurance code (Law 17-99) and, above all, within the wording of each policy. But the practice rests on a division of roles that every policyholder should know before the day it matters.

• The insurer's adjuster — appointed and paid by the insurer. Records the damage and quantifies the indemnity in the insurer's interest. Competent and in good faith, and structurally on the side of the party that instructs them.
• The insured's expert — appointed by the policyholder to defend that side of the file and to produce an adversarial assessment. This is the expert who carries out the counter-appraisal.
• The third expert — brought in when the first two will not converge, to decide the points in dispute: the third-party appraisal.

Nothing about this is adversarial in the hostile sense. It is simply that a figure produced by one party, however carefully, has not yet been tested. The same imbalance appears whenever a loss hits a building held in condominium, where the syndicate faces the insurer alone — the subject of our note on damage to common areas and the assessment of the loss.

2. What the counter-appraisal re-examines — the same parameters, read from the other side

A counter-appraisal invents nothing. It takes the same parametersas the first assessment and works through them from the policyholder's standpoint, with a method that can be followed. Four of them account for almost every gap between two figures:

• The nature and extent of the damage — what is genuinely affected, as against what merely looks affected. A hurried initial inspection routinely understates the consequential damage, which surfaces weeks later.
• The cost of making good — priced trade by trade, at real market conditions, rather than carried as a single lump sum that cannot be interrogated.
• The reinstatement cost of the fabric — what it costs to rebuild identically, land excluded, since land does not burn.
• The depreciation applied — the deduction for age and wear. A reasoned deduction, taken from the condition actually observed, is not the same thing as a flat-rate percentage, and the difference between the two can be a large part of the indemnity.

The object is not to inflate the claim. It is to establish a measure of it that is documented and verifiable line by line — areas, cost assumptions, comparables, condition as found — and that will hold up when it is questioned. That is the discipline a report complying with Red Book standards imposes on its author.

3. Reinstatement cost, market value, depreciation: the three bases that decide the figure

An indemnity is not conjured. It is assembled from bases of value that have to be kept apart from one another.

• Reinstatement (as-new) cost — the cost of rebuilding the building identically, excluding the land. This is the basis a “new for old” cover works from. The land is not at risk and does not enter the calculation. The detail is set out in our guide to home insurance and the reinstatement value.
• Market value — what the property would fetch on the market, land included. It serves other purposes than insurance, and comes back into the discussion where a policy indemnifies on a market-value basis rather than as-new.
• Depreciation — the deduction for wear: the difference between the as-new figure and the actual value on the day of the loss. Its rate follows the condition of the property as found, not an abstract scale.

For the full comparison of these bases, see our note on market value, rental value and reinstatement value.

4. Underinsurance and the average clause: being right and still being paid less

A policyholder can be entirely right about the amount of the damage and still receive less than the damage. That is the effect of the average clause, and its logic is unforgiving.

• There is underinsurance where the sum declared in the policy is lower than the real value of the property — very often because the sum was fixed at an old purchase price and never revisited.
• Many policies then apply an average clause: the indemnity is reduced in the ratio between the declared value and the real value, including for a partial loss.
• The consequence is counter-intuitive and it catches people out: the reduction applies even where the damage is well below the sum declared.

The remedy is one sentence long: a sum insured kept current, documented by an assessment of the reinstatement cost, removes the exposure before anything happens. The exact terms — thresholds, tolerances, deductibles — depend on your policy and on the regulations in force, so check those clauses with your insurer. The mechanism is set out at length in our note on underinsurance and the proportional rule, and the method for establishing the figure in our complete guide to reinstatement cost assessment. Which is the real argument for having the reinstatement cost established when the policy is taken out, and not on the morning after the fire.

5. When the disagreement holds: the third-party appraisal

Where the insurer's adjuster and the insured's expert each hold to their own figure, the policy usually offers a way out: the third-party appraisal. A third expert, appointed by mutual agreement — or, failing that, in the manner the policy sets out — examines the difference and decides it.

• Scope: to decide between the two assessments on the points genuinely in dispute — extent of damage, costs, depreciation — not to start the whole assignment again.
• Costs: how they are shared between insurer and policyholder is governed by the policy, and is worth reading before committing to the process.
• Procedure and time limits: not set out here, because they belong to the policy and to the texts in force. Confirm them with your insurer.

A third-party appraisal remains an amicable mechanism: it runs inside the contract. Which is exactly why it pays to arrive at that stage with a counter-appraisal that has already been documented — that file is what carries weight when the third expert weighs the two positions.

6. What a counter-appraisal is, and what it is not

One clarification is worth more than any amount of enthusiasm, because the wrong expectation ruins a good file. An assessment instructed by a policyholder is a private appraisal: it belongs to amicable negotiation. It is a neutral technical document, documented and credible, which the parties may take as the basis of an agreement. But:

• It does not impose itself on the insurer. Each insurer applies its own criteria; the report feeds the discussion, it does not close it unilaterally.
• It is not a judgment. Where a matter reaches court, the court appoints its own expert — a distinction developed in our note on how to contest an appraisal and the remedies available.

Its natural and most effective ground is therefore the amicable settlement: rebalancing an indemnity, giving substance to a claim, preparing a third-party appraisal. Its conclusions are documented and verifiable line by line, and they impose themselves on nobody.

7. When appointing your own expert is worth it — our reading

• As soon as the indemnity offered looks short, or difficult to reconcile with what you can see — that is the primary reason for a counter-appraisal, and the earlier it is raised the better it travels.
• Where the property is atypical or high-end — specific architecture, unusual finishes, materials that are not held in stock. A standard costing almost always understates what making good will really take.
• Where underinsurance is a live risk — having the real value established lets you anticipate the effect of the average clause instead of discovering it in a settlement letter.
• For a building held in condominium, where the syndicate of co-owners has every reason to set an independent figure against the insurer's — see again damage to common areas.

8. Instructing a counter-appraisal

Bring the policy, the loss declaration and the adjuster's report if you already have it, plus any photographs taken before anything was cleared away. Everything else — measurement, condition as found, costing — we establish on site. Assignments are handled by RICS-certified experts in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tangier, Fès and Agadir, and elsewhere in the country from our network. Reports comply with Red Book standards and are delivered in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service, with a firm quote within 24 hours, from 3,500 MAD excl. tax. What the assignment covers is set out on our counter-appraisal page. ReaConsult has been advising owners, companies and institutional clients since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.

Note: the indemnification of losses is governed by the Moroccan insurance code (Law 17-99) and by the terms of your own policy. The bases of value referred to here — reinstatement cost, market value, depreciation — and the mechanisms described — the average clause, the third-party appraisal — are presented in general terms: the rates, ceilings, deductibles, time limits and exact procedures depend on your policy and on the regulations in force, so confirm your position with your insurer. No percentage, rate or scale is quoted in this article. A private appraisal instructed by a policyholder belongs to amicable negotiation; it is documented and verifiable line by line and imposes itself on nobody, and where a matter reaches court the court appoints its own expert. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.