Kevin.

What Does an Adjuster Look for When Reviewing a Contents Inventory?

A desk review is not an audit of the arithmetic. It is a test of whether each line is supported — what gets checked, how it is sampled at volume, and what happens when a line comes back.

Kevin Godfrey, KevinLast updated 4 October 2026

What does a reviewer actually check on a contents schedule?

Whether the item is clearly identified, whether the quantity makes sense, whether the evidence supports the description, whether the replacement is genuinely comparable, where the price came from, and whether depreciation was applied consistently.

A ten-line schedule can be read in full. A thousand-line schedule cannot, so it gets sampled — and sampling rewards consistency over care on any individual row. The lines that draw attention are the ones that differ from their neighbours for no visible reason.

The ten checks

Roughly the order a reviewer works in
CheckWhat fails it
Is the item identified?“Electronics — $2,400”: nothing to evaluate
Does the quantity make sense?A line that does not say whether it is one, several or a set
Does the evidence support it?A description carrying detail no photograph establishes
Is the replacement comparable?A bundle priced as one item, or a tier swap in either direction
Can the price be verified?A figure with no listing behind it
Is the pricing current?A number carried over from months earlier
Is the class right?Shoes and a collectible depreciating identically
Is the age reasonable?Every item listed as exactly one year old
Are there duplicates?The same television appearing twice
Does the math reconcile?A row that does not foot from quantity to ACV

Comparability is where most of the argument is

A replacement should not be the first expensive thing a search returned. The characteristics that get compared are the ones that set the price: manufacturer, model, size, capacity, material, specification, configuration and quality tier.

Duplicates, and why large claims are exposed to them

A second photograph of the same television must not become a second television. This is not a hypothetical on a pack-out where one item is shot four times from different angles — it is the default outcome unless something prevents it.

Kevin handles it in two places: a photograph already stored on the claim resolves as a duplicate rather than arriving twice, and related frames are proposed as a single item for you to confirm before anything becomes a claim line. The effect a reviewer sees is simply that the item count never exceeds the photograph count.

Consistency is the thing that scales

What has to hold steady across the whole schedule
DimensionThe failure it prevents
Description depthHalf the schedule priceable, half of it arguable
Class assignmentTwo like items on different useful lives
Age handlingOwnership age in one place, model year in another
Source selectionSome lines traceable, some not
DepreciationA percentage that moves without a reason on the row
Quantity treatmentSets and singles counted the same way
Duplicate handlingProperty claimed twice

This is the strongest argument for automating the repetitive part of a contents claim. Not speed — consistency. Software applies the same rule to line 900 that it applied to line 9, and leaves you the exceptions, which is where judgment was always supposed to go.

How the checks get applied at volume

Nobody reads a thousand lines at equal depth, so the checks above are not run once over everything. They are applied in layers, and knowing which layer a line falls into is worth as much as knowing the criteria.

Roughly how a reviewer allocates attention
LayerWhat it looks atWhat it costs
The shapeTotals, item count against photo count, gaps, formatMinutes
The exceptionsHigh value, collectibles, discontinued, outliers, unpriced linesMost of the time spent
The sampleOrdinary lines, in groups, to confirm the pattern holdsExpands when something does not fit

Questioned is not rejected

Most flags are requests: a better description, a better comparable, support for a quantity, a model or age clarified. Lines get removed when they cannot be answered, not when they are challenged — and what decides that is whether the evidence travelled with the line.

The same question, two files
Reviewer asksSource kept on the rowSource not kept
Where did this price come from?Open the link on the rowRe-research the item
Is this the right model?Compare the listing to the descriptionReconstruct from memory
Why this replacement?The characteristics are on the lineRe-argue it from scratch
Is the price still current?Re-price the row and send a versionStart the research again

Once a schedule has been sent it is a reference document, and the reviewer’s notes cite line numbers — so renumbering on a revision breaks every reference in the correspondence. In Kevin a later ingest appends and existing rows keep their numbers; the next export is a new version, and the one already sent still opens as what was sent.

What a strong line lets a reviewer do

Answer five questions without leaving the row: what was damaged, how it was identified, what replacement was selected, where the price came from, and how depreciation was determined. Kevin is built to produce that chain the same way on every line — and the export is a file you send, reviewed by you first. Kevin does not submit into carrier systems and has no carrier-facing review surface.

Common questions

Do insurance companies require a source for every item?
Requirements vary by carrier and by claim, so there is no universal rule. What is consistent is that a price with its listing attached is far easier to evaluate than a number on its own — the question that comes back most often is where a figure came from, and a line that already answers it does not generate that round trip.
Can a carrier question a replacement because the brand is different?
Yes, and the brand itself is not really the issue. What matters is whether the proposed replacement reasonably matches the damaged item in quality, function and the characteristics that set its value. A different brand at the same tier can be perfectly reasonable; the same brand at a lower tier often is not.
Why do contents inventories get questioned?
Most often for vague descriptions, quantities nothing supports, replacements that are not really comparable, depreciation applied inconsistently across the schedule, duplicate items, and prices with no traceable source. Nearly all of these are consistency problems that grow with the size of the claim.
Do adjusters verify replacement links?
They may, and on a large or contested schedule they often do — usually by sampling rather than line by line. The link lets a reviewer check both the product chosen and the price used, which is why a stored source is worth more than a price that was researched carefully and then not recorded.
Does a reviewer read every line?
On a small schedule, often. On a thousand-line schedule it is not realistic, so review tends to combine a pass over the shape of the whole thing, a closer look at the exceptions, and sampling within the rest. That mix is exactly why consistency matters more than perfection on any one row.
What happens after a line is questioned?
Usually a request rather than a refusal: a clarified model, a better comparable, support for a quantity, an age explained. What decides how expensive that is for you is whether the line can be answered from what is already on it, or has to be researched again months later.
What makes a contents schedule easier for a desk adjuster to review?
Descriptions specific enough to judge, quantities that make sense, evidence that supports the description, replacements that genuinely match, current pricing, depreciation applied the same way throughout, and a source on each priced line. A reviewer should never have to reverse-engineer how a number was reached.
Does a source link make a line defensible on its own?
No. A link to the wrong product is not evidence — it is a faster way to find the error. The comparable underneath still has to be the right model, the right size and capacity, one item rather than a bundle, and the right quality tier. The link makes the comparable checkable; it does not make it correct.

Build contents claims faster with Kevin.

Your first 250 line items are free, with no clock running. $249/mo after that, unlimited claims.

Start for FreeSee how it works

Related