Xactimate insurance estimates from an outsourced team that works as an extension of yours: mitigation invoices, rebuild estimates and supplements on the price list you name, with its version and effective date printed on the file. Delivered as an ESX and a PDF in 24-96 hours after the 50 percent start payment, once a second estimator has read it.
What lands in your inbox
Four kinds of buyer send claim files to this desk, and each needs a different document out the other end.
Equipment runs Monday and you are rebuilding a month later, which is two documents on one claim number. Written by the same desk, they reconcile instead of arguing.
You picked up the rebuild after somebody else dried the structure. We write yours against what the photos and the demolition show. The prior estimate is read and cited, never quietly copied, and we state in writing where the two documents disagree.
You need the scope written in Xactimate, with the line items a carrier desk expects. We build the file and hand it to you; you represent the insured, because that is your license and your job, not ours.
A roof file lives on squares, pitch, facets and layer count. Send an EagleView report or your field measurements and the roof is written off measured geometry rather than a guess at the slope.
Open the loss you are holding. A water file and a smoke file are built out of different evidence even when the room is the same.
Scope comes off the affected material inventory and the daily readings. Class drives the equipment count and the sketch drives the reinstall, and both must agree on which rooms were wet.
Removal runs wider than the wet line, so antimicrobial application and containment become defensible items. The source of the water and how long it sat, which set the category, go into the file.
Demolition to sound material, then a rebuild reading like new construction. Debris is written from measured volume and trip count, because on a full structure fire it is the largest item nobody photographs.
Cleaning, HEPA vacuuming, duct cleaning, and a sealer coat plus a stated finish coat count. A room enters the scope because a photo or a reading puts it there, not because it is adjacent.
Room by room inventory with condition noted, plus a separate non restorable list carrying the reason each item is on it. The two must be mutually exclusive or the file reads as double counted.
Handling, transport, storage by the month and packback are four cost events, and storage months run against rebuild duration. Content manipulation, moving contents inside a room, is its own line.
Grouped by building, level and unit, with common areas separated from tenant space and room naming that survives a reader who was never on site.
A multi family insurance restoration estimate carries repeating unit types, so scope is written once per type and applied by unit. Association and unit owner policies cut the building in different places, so we write by physical area.
Three things decide whether a file survives review: the price list, the four choices in every line, and the note that explains each judgment call.
Unless you say otherwise, the file is written on the list published for the month the loss happened, in the region the loss zip falls in.
If a carrier, program or TPA mandates a list, or settles on the date of repair, tell us at intake and we write on it. Beyond that default we do not pick a list for you, because that choice touches settlement position, which is yours.
The version, effective date and region are printed on the estimate and repeated on the assumptions sheet, and the list we intend to use appears in the fixed quote before you approve it. A list that does not match what the carrier expects can be caught by automated review before a human reads the scope.
The three letter category and the selector under it are the pricing decision, and each carries its own logic about what the line already includes.
Two selectors describing almost the same work carry different inclusions and different unit prices, and nothing looks wrong: right room, right quantity, plausible total. It is invisible without a second reader.
Remove, replace, R&R and detach and reset are four cost events on one material. A toilet pulled to replace flooring is detached and reset, a toilet destroyed by the loss is removed and replaced, and the photo decides which.
Carpet quoted in SY against a floor drawn in SF is a ninefold error waiting to be noticed. Equipment days are among the lines reviewers check hardest, and after hours or emergency modifiers go in only where the timeline and a note support them. A market conditions adjustment is a documented request against a named event, not a modifier you tick.
Three defects survive a total check and fail a review: a remove line and an R&R line on the same wall, three labor minimums for one trade on one visit, and a line in a room with no documented damage.
Each note says what the item is for, what documents it, the requirement that makes it necessary and the photo or reading it ties to. Minimums, modifiers, equipment days, code driven items and any quantity not obvious from the sketch always get one.
By the IRC or IBC section number plus any local amendment, written beside the line it justifies. The note separates what code requires from better practice, because ordinance and law is usually separate, limited coverage.
Enough to walk somebody through a room they were never in: a property overview, a room overview from two opposite corners, the damage itself, and a close up with a scale reference.
Send one claim and read the file before you send a second
One loss, one fixed price agreed in writing first. Judge the price list header, the F9 notes and the summary page, then decide whether another file follows.
They arrive on one claim number and they are built from completely different evidence. One is billed from a drying log. The other is billed from a sketch.
Ask an estimator before you send anything at all
Which price list, whether your carrier takes an ESX, what a thin photo record can support. Ask first, or open the redacted file set and read a real one instead.
Insurance supplement writing is not one service. What you need depends on whether the scope changed, the price list changed, or we got something wrong.
| Demolition exposed damage nobody could see | Supplement | Demo photos, moisture map, approved estimate | Fixed quote on the added scope only |
|---|---|---|---|
| The desk adjuster's scope missed a room | Supplement after adjuster scope | Their ESX, your scope sheet, room photos | Quoted off the delta, not the whole file |
| Code requires work the estimate does not carry | Supplement | The code section and any local amendment | Quoted on the added scope, code cited on the line |
| A roof reopened for missing components | Roof supplement Xactimate estimate | Pitch, facets, layer count, tear off photos | Quoted on what was exposed, not the whole roof |
| The job ran long and the price list moved | Reprice | The original ESX and the job dates | Cheaper than writing the file again |
| A line is wrong, or you want a room renamed | Revision | Point at the line or say what to change | No charge for our error, included on unchanged scope |
These three lines decide what reaches your account and when. Here is what is convention, what is arithmetic, and what is decided somewhere neither of us sits.
The informal rule that general contractor overhead and profit, commonly 10% and 10%, is treated as appropriate where a job needs three or more trades coordinated. It grew up in practice and it is not a universal rule. Xactimate keeps it off the line, so O&P is applied separately rather than hidden in unit costs. Documenting the trades and the coordination makes the position checkable, but it does not decide it.
Carriers can strip general contractor O&P where the contractor self performs most of the work, arguing there was little coordination to pay for. We write what the file supports and document the coordination that happened, and we do not promise the line survives.
Replacement cost value is what it costs to replace the property today at the price list on the file, and the policy decides what portion is payable and when. Depreciation is subtracted to give actual cash value. Recoverable depreciation usually releases once work is completed and documented, as the policy provides, and non recoverable never comes back. Whether labor can be depreciated varies by policy and jurisdiction, so we name the treatment and leave the argument where it belongs.
The release package usually needs a final invoice tying to the approved estimate line for line, a certificate of completion and completion photos. Silent differences between estimate and invoice are a common and avoidable reason a release stalls.
RCV, depreciation, ACV, deductible, prior payments and net claim sit on one page a desk adjuster reads before anything else. A deductible applied twice or a prior payment left off is easy to miss, so both estimators check it.
A carrier ready ESX file is the point of the exercise, but it is not the whole package. Here is every file, what it is for, and who can open it.
The working Xactimate file, which a carrier or TPA wants because it opens against their own scope. Opening it in Xactimate needs an active license. It carries your company as preparer and arrives with no watermark, lock or expiry.
What your project manager, your insured and your office read without a license, grouped by room, with the summary page.
The sketch with dimensions and room names, and photos set against the scope they support.
One page: price list version and date, what was assumed where evidence was thin, and every question still open.
The line items as an unlocked spreadsheet for job costing, in your cost coding layout if you send it.
Carriers often run an automated first read in XactAnalysis. A file consistent between code, quantity, sketch and note is less likely to be flagged than a bigger total with loose internals.
Program work often carries mandated price lists, scope caps and photo minimums, and a file that trips a rule can cost you standing on the program. Send the program rules at intake.
Some carriers run Symbility, now under Cotality after the CoreLogic rebrand in March 2025. This desk writes in Xactimate only; name the platform at intake and you are told during the quote.
Two anonymized claim packages from the sample library, in PDF and ESX: a Category 3 water loss scoped room by room, and a fire and smoke loss in a commercial unit. The water loss set keeps mitigation, tear out and rebuild in separate sections and carries notes on the lines an adjuster is likely to question.
Open a redacted file setPut a storm month through a monthly partnership
The monthly queue runs your files first, with supplements ahead of new work. Tell us the claim volume you carry in a heavy month and it gets sized against that.
This section covers what we will not do, who should not order this at all, and where doing it in house is simply cheaper.
We do not contact your adjuster. We do not negotiate, escalate or appear on a call with a carrier. Licensing rules for public adjusting differ by state, and negotiating a claim for an insured is the work those rules cover. That work belongs to the insured or to someone licensed to act for the insured.
There are files you should not send here. A single room Category 1 water loss your own estimator can write in forty minutes, in a week when their desk is not full, costs more to brief out than to write. If the carrier wants it tomorrow morning, 24 to 96 hours after the 50 percent start payment does not make that, and this desk will not cut the second read to pretend it does.
A per-file fee follows the work the file takes, room count and evidence quality, not the dollar value of the claim. Monthly and dedicated plans are priced on volume or the seat, and you approve the price in writing before anyone starts.
| Best for | A first file, or claims that arrive occasionally | A shop with claims running every week | Volume that justifies a person, not a hire |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commitment | None, one claim at a time | Flat monthly retainer, invoiced at month end | A monthly seat rather than a hire |
| Delivery | 24-96h after the 50% start payment | 24-96h on a priority queue | 24-96h, your queue always first |
| Who checks it | Two estimators, always | Two estimators, always | Your dedicated estimator, then an independent second estimator |
| What moves the fee | Room count and evidence quality | Volume, agreed monthly | The seat, not the file count |
| Typical saving | ~25-35% against writing it in house | ~40-55% against writing them in house | ~35-45% against a loaded in house seat |
The questions restoration contractors and adjusters ask right before they upload a loss.
Short, practical write-ups on the questions that come up before a bid goes out.
Send the loss, the photos and whatever documentation exists. An estimator reads it, names the price list, prices the work as one figure, and writes nothing until you approve that figure.
