The Doctrine
Ten years. One clause.
Every auto policy in Texas.
The appraisal clause is the policyholder's one procedural remedy when a carrier's valuation doesn't match reality: each side appoints an appraiser, the appraisers settle the number, and if they can't, a neutral umpire does. In 2015, the largest auto insurer in Texas quietly removed it from its policies.
Robert McDorman spent the next decade getting it back — in writing, and in front of every authority that would grant him an audience. Five formal meetings with the Texas Department of Insurance. Eight appearances before legislative committees. Session after session, bill after bill — filed, heard, and killed.
The press called it David versus Goliath, which was fair on the arithmetic: one Fort Worth adjuster and a coalition of body-shop owners against the largest insurance lobby in the state. He brought a decade of documented undervaluations, and kept bringing them until the Legislature ran out of reasons to look away.
“Every time someone told me ‘no,’ I pushed forward.”
— Robert L. McDorman
In 2025, Senate Bill 458 passed both chambers unanimously. Effective September 1, 2025, the right to appraisal is mandatory in every personal auto policy sold in Texas — no longer a term a carrier can delete. That record is why the nickname stuck: not because of a miracle, but because a wrong number got corrected for thirty million Texans at once.
Coverage & record
- El Paso Times — Auto Claim Specialists wins fight for mandatory right to appraisal in Texas ↗
- The National Law Review — Texas nears final mandatory right to appraisal rules following public hearing ↗
- Senate Bill 458 — certified copy (PDF) ↗
- The hearings — mandatory right to appraisal, legislative record ↗
- Texas All-Lines Adjuster — certificate of completion, March 31, 2015 (PDF) ↗
- Center for Continuing Education — certified appraiser certificate (PDF) ↗
- TDI public insurance adjuster bond — certified copy (PDF) ↗
The record, entered into evidence
2015
State Farm removes the appraisal clause from its Texas auto policies — eliminating the policyholder's one procedural check on the carrier's own valuation.
2016–2023
Five formal meetings with the Texas Department of Insurance. The petitions are heard, considered, and declined — and the documented record grows with each one.
2019–2025
Eight appearances before legislative committees across four sessions. Bills are filed, argued, and die in chamber after chamber. The testimony gets sharper each time.
The coalition
The Auto Body Association of Texas, consumer advocates, and policyholders join the effort. One adjuster's case files become a statewide legislative campaign.
2025
Senate Bill 458 passes both chambers unanimously. When the vote finally came, there was nothing left to argue with.
Sept. 1, 2025
The law takes effect: the right to appraisal is mandatory in every personal auto policy sold in Texas. What one carrier deleted, one adjuster wrote back in — for everyone.