- Tennessee's claims regulations define actual cash value as replacement cost less depreciation, so on an ACV payment every dollar of depreciation is a dollar off the replacement cost. The worksheet, not the check, is where a depreciation dispute starts.
- Four entries drive most of the number: the age assigned, the expected life, any condition adjustment, and what costs the percentage was applied to.
- Recoverable and non-recoverable depreciation are usually marked differently on the estimate. Amounts marked non-recoverable usually aren't paid back after the repair, so the entries behind them are worth checking first.
- When matching widens the repair, the added material adds lines to the estimate and the worksheet; how those lines are aged, and whether their depreciation is recoverable, generally turns on the policy and the regulation's matching rule.
- A Tennessee worksheet that doesn't match your roof or your records — or one you never received — is the place to start; a free review of it, with the policy, can point to the entries worth questioning. Our TN residential and commercial property work is generally on contingency — we only get paid from the recovery, not your pocket.
The depreciation on a Tennessee claim is decided on a page that may never have come with your check: the worksheet behind the estimate, where each line carries an age, an expected life and a percentage. A single wrong entry on that page can move the check by thousands of dollars — a roof dated fourteen years old instead of nine can move it $3,200 — and the check shows only the result.
If you're in Nashville or Clarksville with half a roof replaced after a tornado, in Memphis with a hail estimate whose depreciation column looks like a guess, or in Knoxville with a check that is a fraction of the bid, the worksheet is where you find out whether the number is the policy working as written or an assumption nobody checked.
This article walks through how to read the worksheet, the four entries that decide the check, how recoverable and non-recoverable depreciation are marked, what matching does to the numbers, and where Tennessee's penalty statute fits. We handle Tennessee claims from our Nashville office, for policyholders only. Every policy is different, every claim turns on its own facts.
Reading a Tennessee Depreciation Worksheet Line by Line
Worksheets usually follow the estimate's own layout. Each line names an item — remove and replace laminated shingles, felt underlayment, drip edge, gutters — with a quantity and a price, and then the columns that matter here: the replacement cost of the line, an age and expected life, sometimes a condition rating, the depreciation percentage, the depreciation in dollars, and the actual cash value left. Tennessee's claims regulations generally provide for worksheets detailing all depreciation deductions to be furnished on request. If your estimate shows only totals, ask for the line detail in writing.
Read one roof line before you read the summary. A shingle line showing "14/25 yrs" and 56 percent depreciation tells you the adjuster divided an assumed age of fourteen years by a twenty-five-year expected life, one method adjusters commonly use. If the roof went on nine years before the storm, the same life gives 36 percent, and on $16,000 of cost subject to depreciation that is a $3,200 difference before any other entry is questioned.
Then reconcile the summary page with the lines. A typical summary runs from the replacement cost total, less depreciation, less the deductible, to the net claim paid now, then shows the recoverable depreciation and what the claim comes to once it is paid. Many estimates mark recoverable and non-recoverable depreciation differently; the estimate's legend says which is which. The recoverable part is the holdback. On a common homeowners form, actual cash value is the ceiling until the work is actually complete, so the holdback is generally released after the work is done, up to what was actually spent and on the policy's own terms. If the recoverable total on the summary doesn't equal the recoverable amounts on the lines, or a line you expected to come back is marked non-recoverable, put that question to the adjuster in writing first.
The Four Entries That Decide the Check
Age is the first, and your own records can check it. The figure on the worksheet may come from the house's construction date, an application or renewal record, or how the material looked after the storm. The installation date usually shows up on your roofing invoice, the permit, the warranty registration, or the home inspection done when you bought the house.
Expected life is the second. Roofing sources generally give a three-tab shingle a shorter life than an architectural one, so a three-tab life applied to an architectural roof raises the percentage on every roof line, and siding, gutters, and flooring are each given lives of their own. The product name on your invoice or the wrapper on a leftover bundle usually shows what was installed.
Condition is the third. Some worksheets add a condition rating, or a percentage for wear beyond what age alone would produce. An adjustment like that rests on what the item looked like before the storm, so the records that answer it are pre-storm ones: the inspection report and listing photographs from your purchase, a roofer's maintenance invoice, your own photographs from an earlier season. If the worksheet doesn't say what a condition entry rests on, ask in writing.
The fourth is what the percentage was applied to. Some worksheets depreciate only the material; others apply the percentage to the whole line, including labor, overhead and profit, and tax. Whether labor may be depreciated turns on the policy's wording, so read your policy's loss settlement and actual cash value wording against how the worksheet treated each line.
When Matching Changes the Worksheet
Tennessee's claims regulations also address replacements that won't match. As the rule reads, on a replacement cost loss where new materials won't match what remains in quality, color, or size, the insurer is generally to replace enough to achieve a reasonably uniform appearance, under the policy's terms. If that widens your repair from a few squares to a full slope, or from one wall of siding to the whole elevation, the estimate and the worksheet behind it would be expected to widen with it.
How the added material is depreciated, and whether its depreciation is recoverable on the same terms as the material beside it, generally turns on the policy and the regulation's matching rule. Ask for a revised estimate and a revised worksheet together, and check the added lines: the age and life used, whether their depreciation is included in the recoverable total, and whether any of it was placed in the non-recoverable column.
Four Things to Check Before a Tennessee ACV Payment Is Treated as Final
The Worksheet Never Came
A check with a one-page summary and no line detail leaves you with a total and no way to test it. Ask in writing for the depreciation worksheets on every line, with the age, life, and condition used for each major item, and keep the request with its date.
The Age Column Uses the House's Age
On a 2026 loss, a 2012 house with a 2017 roof, depreciated as a 2012 roof, carries 14/25 where the invoice points to 9/25. Send the roofing invoice or permit with a written request to recalculate those lines.
The Depreciation Is Marked Non-Recoverable
The legend on your estimate shows which marking means which. Non-recoverable depreciation usually means the policy limits what that item can recover — an actual cash value roof endorsement, a roof payment schedule, or contents without replacement cost coverage. Find the policy term behind it. If there isn't one, the marking deserves a written question; if there is, the age and life, or schedule entry, behind it are where any dispute sits.
The Tornado Took Part of the Roof
A Middle Tennessee house with two slopes stripped and two intact can raise a worksheet question and a matching question at once. Photograph new beside old, get the supplier's statement if the shingle line is discontinued, and ask for a revised worksheet showing the age and life used for the added slopes.
Tennessee's Penalty Statute and a Worksheet That Won't Be Corrected
A worksheet with a wrong age that is fixed once the invoice arrives is a routine correction, and a carrier asking for the final invoice before it releases the holdback is generally the policy working as written. Tennessee's claims regulations are enforced by the Department of Commerce and Insurance and generally don't, on their own, give a policyholder a claim for damages. In a depreciation dispute, the regulations are the reason to ask for the worksheet; the penalty statute is what may come into play when a corrected one is ignored.
Tennessee's statutory lever is a separate one: where an insurer refuses to pay a covered loss after a formal demand and a waiting period, and the refusal is found not to have been in good faith, state law can add up to 25 percent of the loss, measured by the extra expense or loss the refusal caused. A worksheet corrected with records and then ignored, on a loss the policy covers, can be the kind of file that statute was written for; a good-faith disagreement over a reasonable life expectancy generally is not.
Where the policy has an appraisal clause, a common homeowners form allows either side to demand appraisal if the two disagree on the amount of loss; whether a dispute over age, life or condition falls within it depends on the wording and Tennessee law. Whether a file calls for appraisal, a formal demand, or suit depends on the record, and owners commonly have a Tennessee-licensed attorney read the policy and the correspondence before choosing any of them.
How Property People Law Approaches Tennessee Depreciation Claims
Our first request is the worksheet. With it in hand, we check each major line's age, life, condition, and base against your records and the policy's loss settlement wording, sort the depreciation into what is recoverable and what is not, and lay out what the corrected lines come to. If the carrier's figures hold up, we tell you that.
When they don't, we send the corrected lines with the records behind them, raise matching where a partial repair would leave a mismatch, and move to appraisal, a formal demand, or suit when the record calls for it. From our Nashville office we work Tennessee claims for homeowners and businesses, and only ever for the policyholder.
Our TN residential and commercial property work is generally on contingency — we only get paid from the recovery, not your pocket. Past results in other cases don't guarantee outcomes in any new matter, and every claim turns on its own facts.
