Eight in ten restoration contractors say the quality of their work directly shapes how policyholders perceive the insurance carrier behind the claim, according to the final installment of Contractor Connection’s 2026 State of the Managed Repair Market report. That figure sits at the end of a chain: a carrier refers a claim, a contractor completes the repair, and the policyholder’s lasting impression of the insurer is formed by what happens on the job site, not in the claims office.
Contractor Connection, Crawford & Company’s managed repair network of more than 5,000 vetted contractors across the US, according to the company, surveyed nearly 500 senior leaders of insurance restoration businesses in Q2 2026. The three-part report covers what is pressuring contractor businesses, what they value in managed repair programs, and what they want from carrier partners going forward.
The 82% figure identifies where policyholder satisfaction is produced. It is not produced in a claims office or at the point of payment. It is produced when a contractor shows up on time, communicates clearly, and completes a repair correctly. When that chain breaks, the policyholder experience degrades at a point the carrier cannot directly control. A contractor who cannot find qualified workers, is extending job cycle times to manage capacity, or is absorbing costs that are starting to strain their business is the most likely reason it breaks.
That dynamic runs through the property claims capacity squeeze that Crawford’s Lance Malcolm, president of network solutions, warned about in October. Malcolm told Insurance Business that repair delays and communication failures tend to surface in broker-client relationships, rather than just in carrier satisfaction scores. Brokers whose clients are waiting on stalled repairs hear about it first.
The report’s section three finding on policyholder perception gives that warning its data foundation. It is not that contractors are underperforming. Eighty percent of contractors said customer expectations have risen in recent years, according to the report’s second installment. They are absorbing those rising expectations alongside rising labor costs and tighter hiring conditions that the earlier installments documented in detail.
The report’s message from contractors to carriers is that communication and responsiveness are the biggest areas for improvement, not technical processes. When asked what they want from carrier partners, contractors identified communication ahead of pricing, documentation standards and technology integration.
That priority order is itself a signal. These are experienced businesses. The survey respondents have a median of 24 years in operation. They understand the managed repair model. What they are asking for is not a redesign of the program. They want carriers to communicate earlier, respond faster when questions arise, and treat the relationship as genuinely mutual.
Technology comes into that picture as an enabler rather than a solution. Eighty-nine percent of contractors already use technology for cost estimating and scoping, and 86% use it for communications and documentation, according to the report’s first installment. The report notes that contractors see those tools as most effective when they support existing working relationships rather than substitute for them. A contractor who cannot get a timely response from a carrier adjuster is not helped by a better platform for sending unanswered messages.
“The biggest opportunity for contractor-carrier collaboration is communication and partnership,” one network contractor said in the report. “When both sides share information openly and work toward the same goals, operations run a lot smoother.”
Contractors remain committed to managed repair programs, but their participation rests on a specific economic rationale. Seventy-four percent cite a steady stream of work as the primary benefit of program participation, well ahead of credibility, trust and competitive advantage. That figure, from the report’s section two, is the lever that makes the whole arrangement function. Contractors accept program constraints because the volume of work justifies it. Those constraints include pricing frameworks, documentation requirements and carrier oversight.
If that calculus shifts, either because contractors can fill their schedules outside managed programs or because program economics become unworkable, the network that carriers rely on for cycle time control, estimate accuracy and cost containment becomes harder to maintain. The report does not predict that outcome. But the data it assembles describes a contractor base that is managing more strain than the headline participation numbers suggest. That data covers labor pressure, rising costs, extending cycle times and growing carrier demands for discounts and services.
