Episode 62 – Questionable Engineering Reports

The Florida Board of Professional Engineers has drafted proposed rules to govern how engineers write formal damage evaluation reports, often used in insurance claims lawsuits.  The rules were prompted by an influx of new complaints and mounting frustration about questionable engineering reports and testimony on behalf of plaintiffs – typically involving roof damage.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sits down with two engineers to discuss the current lack of formal ethics rules, the impact on Florida’s property insurance market, outright examples of fraud, and how the new rules – plus consumer education – will help solve the problem.

George Miles, Senior Principal Engineer, Alligator Consulting Engineers

Steve Syrcle, Principal Engineer, Tri-State Consulting Engineers

Show Notes

The Florida Board of Professional Engineers currently has no rules regarding ethics and responsibilities by Florida’s 46,000 licensed professional engineers in drafting damage assessments.  Most of the Board’s rules on responsibility have to do with design standards for new projects and other particulars.  The podcast discusses new regulations (New Rule Chapter 61G15-38) aimed at improving the accuracy and ethics of damage reports in insurance claims and lawsuits.

Background: Lack of Ethics Rules

George Miles, Senior Principal Engineer with Alligator Consulting Engineers in Edgewater, Florida, has seen the problem first-hand.  The 25-year engineering veteran has written damage evaluation reports and testified in insurance claims cases in both civil and criminal court.  The lack of ethics rules “has made it a little bit like the wild, wild west,” he said.  “One engineer specifically, he made up a method that basically said that wind as it went over a house, would speed up.  This is completely untrue.  Nothing further from the truth.  He testified in court to it for years.  When I saw it, I knew it was false.  He went as far as taking a NASA document that said this theory was false, cutting out the picture of the NASA document to just show the diagram, and used it to try to prove his method was true.” 

Miles said he complained and the board simply told the engineer not to use that method anymore – but he has persisted in doing so.  Miles said the Board is “handcuffed” without ethics rules; that its prosecuting attorney has said that it is difficult to find probable cause against an engineer, even when a complaint may be valid, without having rules in place that address reports and standards for existing damaged buildings.  Miles said he’s turned in about 18 engineers with questionable reports to the board and is among those leading the charge to implement the proposed rules.

Marketplace Problems

Host Miller, who has worked in the property insurance and disaster recovery fields for several decades, noted the number of such complaints has grown over the past four years and that most of them concern damage to buildings during severe weather, including hurricanes.  These complaints include reports claiming major damage from minor wind events and in some cases, the engineer citing irrelevant or unproven research.  “Engineering reports are a critical component of our disaster recovery efforts here in Florida,” she said, expressing surprise that no ethics rules exist.

Steve Syrcle, Principal Engineer at Tri-State Consulting Engineers, has 32 years of experience, focusing on land use development and forensic engineering, including post-catastrophe inspection work in Florida.  “When we work with insurance companies, that’s primarily a lot of what our scope (of assessment) is, in that they haven’t been able to rule out exactly how the damage happened.  Was it related to a catastrophic event?”  Syrcle shared examples of homeowners being misled by roofing companies and the prevalence of inaccurate claims.

“Quite often, I’ll get homeowners that will testify that ‘Well, you know, a roofing company knocked on my door and asked to get up on the roof, and then they came down and said I had hail damage, so I submitted a claim, and all my other neighbors are getting new roofs, so figured I’d submit a claim.’  That’s really what inundates a lot of the insurance market, is that there’s just a lot of inaccurate claims for homes that have roofs that are not properly maintained,” Syrcle said.

He pointed out that homes in Florida need to be painted every four to six years to avoid creating damage.  “It’s going to create cracking in the stucco, and then you got interior moisture intrusion.  That’s deferred maintenance and not necessarily caused by a catastrophic event or wind or storm event,” said Syrcle.  “A lot of it boils down to education of the insured.”

Outright Fraud

Miles told Miller that there are a few words or phrases, whether written or spoken by an engineer, that immediately trigger suspicion on his part.  One is “chatter,” describing the sound that loose ceramic tiles on a roof will make due to wind uplift.  He said that usually only occurs in winds of between 115 mph and 140 mph, depending on the weight of the tile – certainly not winds of under 100 mph, as he’s seen claimed.  “If I hear the term ‘lifted,’ whether shingle or tile, that’s a red flag, too.  You can look at a roof, and what do you mean it’s lifted?  The shingles are laying flat.  ‘Oh, they were lifted.’  Can you prove they got lifted?  No, unless you show me a video, no,” added Miles.

Host Miller brought up the case cited in an Insurance Journal article, in which a plaintiff’s testifying engineer claimed to have written as many as 300 reports in a year.  “I’ve heard about engineers that have not even put boots on the ground and write reports, and that, to me, would be fraudulent,” said Syrcle.  “You absolutely cannot ascertain the exact damage, determine the cause, origin and duration of any type of damage from a claim without visually seeing it, in my opinion.”

Proposed Rules and Their Impact on Engineering Practices

The Board’s proposed rules would govern engineers’ practices in writing formal Damage Evaluation Reports. They include requirements for writing reports on different types of roofs, wall opening systems (such as windows and doors), and wall cladding (such as wood siding and stucco).   

Miles said there was a change in report writing over the last several years by plaintiff attorneys’ engineers, where a true engineering section is missing, “because that was what I was picking apart and I was turning them in on.  So what did they do?  They just got rid of that section and said, ‘Well, it’s my professional opinion.’  But when you ask them why, they don’t have anything to back it up,” he said.

Miles explained the proposed rules aim to enforce the use of approved testing methods and national standards for damage evaluations, including those from the American Society of Civil Engineers and ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials).  He discussed the importance of backing up conclusions with calculations, studies, and reports, and the elimination of fraudulent tests like the brittleness test.

“It is a fake test.  It does not exist in the real world at all,” said Miles.  “Every article you ever read on a brittleness test will talk about how this test is kind of being done.  But there is no standard.  That means that no standard test method has been derived.  The reason is, a shingle roof is temperature dependent.  I can take a brand-new shingle, throw it in a freezer, pull it out, and if I try to bend it, it’ll break, brand new.  But if I heat that same shingle up to 100 degrees, I could roll it up into a circle without a problem. Same thing with an existing roof,” he explained.  “So you will get these engineers and roofers claiming that they did a brittleness test and the roof is brittle and can’t be repaired, and it’s a completely untrue and false statement.”  Miles said the proposed rules would prohibit citing a brittleness test.

“I think it’s a great step in the right direction,” agreed Syrcle.  “I have experience in the construction industry as well, so I know how everything is installed, and if not, I know I have to do a little additional research to provide that in my reports.”  He said the proposed rules, in establishing guidelines, would educate both engineers and the insurance industry, while improving transparency and accountability.

How an Engineer Handles a Claim

Host Miller noted that there is also skepticism by some people of engineers hired by insurance companies to provide damage evaluation reports related to a claim.  Miles noted that his firm has worked for both plaintiff and defense attorneys, that engineers are simply a third-party, and get paid a set amount for their work.

“We don’t take a side.  That’s not our job.  Our job is simply to go evaluate in a proper engineering role.  The plaintiffs and the defense should send out engineers, and the reports should match up identically, and that’s the truth.  They should be identical, because both of them should be equally qualified and do equal the job to evaluate it, and they shouldn’t have the discrepancies that we’re seeing.  That’s why these rules are coming into play, and that becomes the biggest issue,” said Miles.

“George is right, we have no dog in the fight,” said Syrcle.  “We are there to do a non-biased engineering opinion on what the cause, origin, and duration of the claim damage is, and that’s it.”

A Guide to Roof Tile Damage

Based on his experiences, Miles and a fellow consulting engineer, Daniel Frates, wrote a guide to aid engineers, attorneys, adjusters, and property owners in examining wind damage to concrete tile roofs.  The guide was recently published in the Insurance Journal.   He said the goal was to provide a standard for evaluating roof damage – and eliminate fraudulent claims.

“I’ve been on a golf course and on a roof with golf balls on the roof, and having a public adjuster telling me that all of the broken tiles were due to hail.  And there’s golf balls on the roof.  So obviously, the roof wasn’t damaged by hail.  And in fact, you would find that the fairway would have a faucet facing it, and that’s the faucet with all the broken tiles.  Yet they would claim this was all due to hail affecting one area of the roof,” said Miles.  He said it is important to look at all parameters to roof damage, including any tree branches that may have fallen on the roof.

Host Miller underscored Syrcle’s emphasis on the importance of consumer education.  “I often say, people that you know come to your back door, those that come to your front door, we as Floridians in our neighborhoods, shouldn’t answer the front door.  That would solve a lot of this problem if we had folks that just didn’t answer their front door, and even more importantly, not allowing people when they ask, ‘Can I get up on your roof?’  Don’t let somebody up on your roof unless it’s someone you’ve hired to be on your roof,” said Miller.  She also reminded listeners to talk to their insurance agent annually to make sure they have enough coverage should their home be totally destroyed.

“Engineering damage evaluation reports have to be right, have to be precise, and there’s just no way to do things have heartedly.  They are very technical and they are required and needed, particularly whenever these claims may go to court,” Miller said.

The comment period on the proposed rules ends on March 31, 2026.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Florida Board of Professional Engineers

Proposed Rules for Engineers Conducting Damage Evaluations (New Rule Chapter 61G15-38) (Florida Board of Professional Engineers)

Alligator Consulting Engineers

Tri-State Consulting Engineers

Florida Board Drafting Rules That Could Stem Bogus Engineering Reports in Claims (Insurance Journal, January 26, 2026)

Florida Engineers: Winds Under 110 mph Simply Do Not Damage Concrete Tiles, by George Miles and Daniel Frates (Insurance Journal, February 13, 2026)

Subscribe to the LMA Newsletter and The Florida Insurance Roundup podcast (free)

** The Listener Call-In Line for your recorded questions and comments to air in future episodes is 850-388-8002 or you may send email to [email protected] **

The Florida Insurance Roundup from Lisa Miller & Associates, brings you the latest developments in Property & Casualty, Healthcare, Workers’ Compensation, and Surplus Lines insurance from around the Sunshine State.  Based in the state capital of Tallahassee, Lisa Miller & Associates provides its clients with focused, intelligent, and cost conscious solutions to their business development, government consulting, and public relations needs.  On the web at www.LisaMillerAssociates.com or call 850-222-1041.  Your questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome!  Date of Recording 3/13/2026. Email via [email protected]   Composer: www.TeleDirections.com  © Copyright 2017-2026 Lisa Miller & Associates, All Rights Reserved