How We Read an Indemnity Schedule Inside a Claim Application

When a claim application arrives with a multi-page indemnity schedule, the temptation is to accept the bottom line and move on. In a financial audit of insurance claims applications, we treat that schedule as a set of claims that must each survive a short test.

Start with the settlement basis

Before touching any line item, we confirm whether the policy settles on reinstatement, indemnity, or agreed value. A reinstatement schedule that quietly drops betterment deductions is a common source of overstatement. Conversely, an indemnity settlement that still includes full new-for-old labour rates needs a challenge note.

Trace every total to a source document

Each material line should point to an invoice, estimate, or medical bill in the annex. We mark lines that only cite “per adjuster” without a document. Those are not automatically wrong, but they cannot support settlement until the source appears.

Watch for overlapping labour

Contractor schedules often bill scaffolding, debris removal, or site supervision more than once across competing quotes. We lay the labour narratives side by side. Overlaps become adjustment candidates in the findings memo.

Separate salvage from indemnity

Salvage offers sometimes sit inside the indemnity total instead of beside it. We move them to a clear offset so the committee sees the net figure the application actually supports.

Close with a recalculated figure

The memo states our recalculated indemnity, the application’s figure, and the gap. We do not bury the arithmetic in footnotes; claims managers need the numbers in one place.