Build a claim-ready record from day one

How to use this checklist

Treat this as what "complete" means for a job file, not as a form to fill out at the end. Every item below is easiest to capture at the moment it happens and hardest to reconstruct afterward — a missing arrival timestamp can't be recovered later with any real confidence, but it takes seconds to capture correctly in the moment. The universal section applies to every job regardless of loss type; the sections after it layer on what's specific to that type of loss.

Universal requirements — every job, every loss type

These apply regardless of what caused the loss. Missing any of them is one of the most common reasons a supplement gets questioned.

• Timestamped arrival and departure for every visit
• Signed authorization to perform services
• Initial inspection photos of all affected areas
• Loss source, cause, and date of loss recorded
• Customer contact and communication log
• Scope of work and any changes to it, dated and attributable
• Technician of record for every visit, not just the job overall

Water mitigation additions (IICRC S500)

Water losses are judged largely on whether the drying process can be shown to have worked, which means the moisture trend matters as much as any single reading.

• Category and class documented per affected room
• Moisture readings logged against a defined target, not just recorded
• Equipment placement and removal timestamps per unit
• Antimicrobial application log where applicable
• Two consecutive on-target readings before drying certification
• Affected materials list with disposition (dried in place, removed, monitored)

Fire restoration additions (IICRC S700)

Fire and smoke losses add a contamination and content-triage dimension that water losses generally don't require.

• Burn type (protein, natural, synthetic) and affected zones
• Soot and smoke damage assessed by room and surface type
• Odor treatment cycles logged to completion
• Content triage results: restorable vs. total loss
• HVAC and duct contamination check
• Structural vs. cosmetic damage breakdown by room

Mold remediation additions (IICRC S520)

Mold is the one loss type where a third-party clearance test is typically required before the job can be considered closed — documentation has to support that the test happened, not just that the work did.

• Pre-remediation assessment: visible growth, moisture source, affected square footage
• Containment type (limited vs. full) and negative air machine log
• Pre- and post-remediation air sample results
• Root moisture source correction confirmed
• Third-party clearance test result before closeout
• HEPA vacuum and wipe-down log per contained area

Storm & catastrophe additions

Storm work often involves temporary mitigation ahead of permanent repair, and sometimes ties to a larger multi-property event — both need their own record.

• Weather event reference (date, storm name or ID if applicable)
• Roof and exterior damage documented before any temporary repairs
• Temporary repair or mitigation actions logged with timestamps
• Debris and tarping documentation where applicable
• Multiple-property or catastrophe-level job linkage if part of a larger event

Contents restoration additions

Contents work lives or dies on chain of custody — an item that can't be tracked from pack-out to pack-back is an item a customer can reasonably dispute.

• Pre-pack-out inventory with photos per item or box
• Chain-of-custody log from pack-out through storage to pack-back
• Cleaning or restoration vendor and disposition per item
• Total-loss determination and supporting justification
• Storage location and environmental conditions where applicable

Common gaps that create carrier disputes

The same handful of gaps show up again and again: a daily monitoring log missing for part of an active drying period, containment that was performed but never photographed, a moisture progression trend with a multi-day break in it, or a clearance test that was scheduled but never confirmed. None of these are complicated to avoid — they're just easy to miss without something checking for them while the job is still open.

What makes these particular gaps costly isn't that the work wasn't done — in most cases it was. It's that the record can't prove it, and an undocumented action is functionally indistinguishable from one that never happened once a dispute starts.

Auditing your current file against this list

The fastest way to use this checklist isn't to redesign your paperwork process — it's to pull three or four recently closed jobs and check them against it directly. Most companies find the same pattern: the universal requirements are usually in decent shape, since they're the most obvious ones, but the loss-type-specific additions are inconsistent from job to job, and the gaps concentrate around whichever technician or crew handled that particular file. That inconsistency, more than any single missing item, is usually the real finding.

Who actually owns each requirement

Ambiguity about ownership is its own source of gaps. As a general pattern: the technician on site owns everything time-sensitive — arrival and departure, initial photos, readings taken during the visit. The office or project manager owns anything that spans the whole job — the authorization on file, the customer communication log, the overall scope. Clearance tests and third-party verifications are usually owned by whoever schedules them, which is exactly why they're one of the most common gaps — scheduling something is not the same as confirming it happened.