Resources

The book: Wilkofsky, The Law and Procedure of Insurance Appraisal

If you want one book on this subject, it's Jonathan J. Wilkofsky's The Law and Procedure of Insurance Appraisal(3d edition) — the most comprehensive practitioner treatment of appraisal in print, covering the clause's history, state-by-state variations, panel selection, hearings, awards, and the case law behind all of it. It sits on my desk and gets used. This site summarizes concepts in its own words and cites the primary law directly, but for the full treatment — nearly 1,400 pages of it — buy the book (ISBN 978-0-9729278-4-0).

Primary law

California Insurance Code § 2071 (the standard form fire policy, including the appraisal provision) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 1280–1294.2 (the arbitration statutes that supply appraisal's procedural framework) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations, 10 CCR § 2695.1 et seq. — insurance.ca.gov
The case law — see the verified California case law library

How this site verifies things

Every statute and case cited on this site is checked against the primary source — the actual opinion text or the current code — before it publishes. Where the law is unsettled or a source can't be verified, the article says so instead of papering over it. If you catch an error anyway, email and it gets fixed.

By Leland Coontz— insurance appraiser and umpire; dozens of appraisals over more than two decades of property claims work on both sides of the industry, including Superior Court appointment as umpire.Retain Leland →