Tippett v. Safeco: What the Court Said About Appraisal, Causation & Scope

Tippett v. Safeco Insurance Company of Indiana (5th Cir. 2023) is a Texas-law decision that has quickly become required reading for anyone invoking appraisal after a hail or wind claim. The dispute was familiar: the carrier said much of the roof damage pre-existed the date of loss, the insured said it did not, and appraisal was invoked to fix the amount.

The core question was scope vs. causation. Carriers routinely argue that appraisal panels can only decide the price of already-agreed damage, and that anything touching 'causation' has to be sent back to coverage litigation. Tippett cuts against that. Following State Farm Lloyds v. Johnson, the court reaffirmed that appraisers necessarily decide the extent of damage attributable to the loss event — and that separating covered from non-covered damage is part of that job, not a forbidden coverage decision.

In practical terms, the panel in Tippett was allowed to look at each slope and each elevation and decide what was hail-related versus what was wear, prior hail, mechanical damage, or manufacturing defect. That is exactly the analysis a competent appraiser and umpire perform every day. The 5th Circuit's approval of that process makes it much harder for a carrier to blow up an award by claiming the panel 'went too far'.

Why it matters for your claim: if a carrier accepts a small number of damaged shingles but denies the rest as 'pre-existing' or 'wear and tear', appraisal is often the fastest path to a real number. Under Tippett, the panel can address the very slope-by-slope arguments the carrier is using to underpay you — provided the appraiser you hire is qualified to make those determinations and document them.

Limits worth knowing. Tippett does not turn appraisal into a bad-faith proceeding. It does not decide whether a policy covers a particular peril in the abstract, and it does not override plain policy exclusions. Flood, earth movement, and certain anti-concurrent-causation clauses still live in coverage court, not in the appraisal room. And the panel cannot rewrite the policy — it decides amount, including how much of the loss the covered peril caused.

If you're staring at a denial or a heavily-depreciated estimate that claims most of your roof is 'old damage,' Tippett is a reason to take appraisal seriously rather than accept the number. Send us the estimate, the denial letter, and your policy declarations page and we'll tell you honestly whether appraisal or a supplemental claim is the right next move.