After a fire, homeowners are forced to make a lot of decisions quickly — often while dealing with stress, displacement, and uncertainty. One of the most common points of confusion we see is around who chooses the contents provider.
Many homeowners are told, directly or indirectly, that insurance needs to “approve” their contents company or that using someone outside of a recommended list could put coverage at risk. That uncertainty creates understandable fear and can lead to rushed decisions. We will discuss “approvals” in a minute.
The reality is more straightforward — and more empowering — than it’s often made to seem.
You Have the Right to Choose Your Contents Provider
As the policyholder, the person who has been paying the monthly premiums, you have the right to choose who handles your contents.
This means you are not required to use a contents company recommended by your insurance carrier. Recommendations are common, but they are not mandates.
That said, choosing your own provider does not remove policy requirements or guarantee that every cost will be approved. Coverage is still governed by your policy terms, limits, and conditions. A quality contents company will clearly document and justify its scope of work to the insurance carrier and will not proceed with work that may not be approved without your consent.
Why This Confusion Exists:
Insurance companies and the adjusters handling claims often recommend vendors they’ve worked with before. Adjusters are responsible for managing claims efficiently, and familiarity can simplify communication, documentation, and pricing review.
In many claims, these recommendations are delivered with strong opinions and persuasive language. Homeowners are often led to believe that using a preferred vendor will avoid friction, delays, or additional scrutiny — creating the impression that choosing a different provider could complicate the claim or put coverage at risk. For someone already dealing with loss, displacement, and stress, that pressure can feel authoritative rather than optional.
While adjusters are permitted to recommend vendors, review scope and pricing, and request clarification, a recommendation is not a requirement. In most states, insurance regulations are designed to prevent “steering,” meaning insurers cannot require a policyholder to use a specific vendor as a condition of coverage. Even when an adjuster strongly prefers a particular contractor — whether due to familiarity, prior experience, or pricing expectations — the policyholder retains the right to choose their own contents provider.
Understanding this distinction helps explain why recommendations can feel mandatory, while still preserving the homeowner’s legal right to make an informed, independent decision.
The next question is how insurance actually evaluates the work being proposed — and what “approval” really means in practice.
The Approval Process
Coverage decisions are typically influenced by what a policy covers, applicable limits, endorsements or riders, the scope of work, and other nuances specific to each claim. These details are discussed collaboratively between the insured, the contractor, and the adjuster.
In most cases, a contractor — whether structural or contents — develops a detailed scope of work outlining everything required to return the home and its contents to pre-loss condition. That scope is then submitted as an estimate to both the homeowner and the adjuster for review.
It is the adjuster’s responsibility to ensure that the work outlined in the estimate aligns with the policy’s coverages, pricing guidelines, and policy limits. This review applies to the scope and cost of the work, not to the contractor performing it.
Once the estimate is understood in this context, the next question becomes how that scope of work is evaluated. Adjusters are not reviewing estimates in a vacuum — they rely on established industry standards to determine whether the proposed work is reasonable, necessary, and consistent with accepted restoration practices.
Industry Standards Also Matter
In addition to policy language and documentation, contents work is guided by recognized industry standards developed by restoration authorities, including the IICRC S700 Standard for Professional Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration. These standards define how restoration professionals evaluate damage based on technical factors such as soot type and concentration, fire source, heat exposure, residue migration, material composition, and the potential for ongoing contamination or odor absorption.
Restoration professionals use this framework to determine whether contents can be safely cleaned, require specialized treatment, or must be removed from the environment altogether. Adjusters are not expected to be restoration experts; their role is to interpret policy language, verify coverage, and ensure the documented scope of work is reasonable and supported within policy limits.
When differences arise, the discussion often centers on how the scope is explained, justified, and documented in a way that aligns professional standards with the claim file. However, in certain loss scenarios — particularly those involving smoke and odor — the qualifications of the contractor and the thoroughness of the work do matter, as incomplete or improper remediation can lead to recurring odor issues and secondary damage long after the initial claim is closed.
How to Protect Your Claim
Deviating from a preferred or recommended contents provider is not the risk — choosing one without clear documentation systems, communication, and defined processes is. To protect yourself, it’s important to ask prospective providers how they document decisions, communicate scope, justify pricing, and handle disagreements during the claim.
You can also ask what systems or software they use, what documentation and deliverables you will receive, and how their process works from photo inventory and packout through cleaning and final pack-back. Clear documentation and communication don’t just protect the claim — they protect the homeowner.
Where Phoenix Fits
The greatest risk in fire and smoke claims is not typically cost — it’s misalignment. Misalignment between what the policy covers, what the loss actually requires, and how the work is scoped, documented, and executed.
At Phoenix, our role sits at the intersection of those moving parts.
We work closely with contractors, insureds, and adjusters to ensure that the scope of contents work accurately reflects the conditions of the loss, is supported by recognized industry standards, and is clearly documented within the claim. That includes evaluating factors such as soot type, contamination level, heat exposure, odor risk, and material sensitivity — all of which influence how extensive the work truly needs to be.
We don’t expect adjusters to be restoration experts, and we don’t treat them like adversaries. Their responsibility is to interpret the policy and manage dollars within coverage and limits. Our responsibility is to ensure the work being proposed is technically appropriate, defensible, and clearly explained, so those decisions can be made with confidence.
When those pieces align, claims move more smoothly, restoration is completed correctly the first time, and insureds avoid the long-term issues — such as recurring odor — that often surface when contents work is rushed, underscoped, or improperly executed.