Free Damage Inspection
We Work On A Contingency
No Up Front Costs
No Up Front Costs

The Top 5 Property Claim Estimating Errors

Whether you are a construction professional or a public insurance adjuster, if you frequently write detailed estimates then you likely understand and appreciate how important it is to be accurate. Since we are all human, we all make mistakes. However, many of the mistakes that we make on a frequent basis can be avoided if we just remain cognizant of which errors are the most common.

  • Math – It is easy enough to multiply the length, width and height of a room. But, when that room has multiple offsets, missing walls and forget about the sloped or peaked ceilings, the math becomes more cumbersome. In todays modern world there is no good reason to perform all of the calculations manually. iScopeCloud can calculate the dimensions of all but the oddest shaped rooms. The user can then merely use a “Quantifier” such as “W” for walls or “F” for flooring to quantify the area of a specific portion of the room.
  • Pricing – Using the price list in iScopeCloud or most any of the major unit cost estimating platforms can get you right on or really close to the pricing you will need for your estimate. You can and should also use your professional judgment to “adjust” the pricing as needed for the specific jobsite conditions. No price list is perfect. True estimators know this and make necessary adjustments to the unit cost pricing as well as notes as to why they felt the adjustment was needed. “If an ADJUSTER is not frequently making ADJUSTMENTS to the unit cost pricing contained in the master price list, based on their experience and the specific jobsite conditions, then he or she is not really an ADJUSTER! – Stephen Hadhazi”. By the same token, “If an insurance company does not allow their field ADJUSTER to use their experience to ADJUST the unit cost pricing or scope of a loss to the requirements of that specific loss, then that insurer is likely not really ADJUSTING the claim – they are ballparking it” – Stephen Hadhazi
  • Labor Rates – Labor rates can vary with the wind – or more likely, the cold or the heat. It is important to use professional judgment and experience in coordination with a unit cost price list to “adjust” for factors that a price list by itself would be hard pressed to do. It is always important to use your experience and not just rely on “written in stone” pricing from any publisher.
  • Units of Measurement – How many times have you entered SF in place of SQ or vice versa? As we all know, this can be the difference between making a profit on a job – or not. While we at iScopeCloud do have some safety mechanisms built in to help users identify when they have made a boo-boo, we can’t write the estimate for you. So, it is important to be sure that all aspects of the line item unit cost are correct. Errors such as this typically occur when creating new line items or Misc line items – so be careful!
  • Copying & Pasting – Many of you do not even need to read further to know what I am about to say. Technology is wonderful and can be a real time saver, but if you are distracted, you can easily end up with an estimate that is horribly incorrect. When you use the copy and paste functions inside of iScopeCloud to paste items into multiple rooms at once, be sure to immediately spend the time to go into each room and delete the items that don’t belong there – before you forget.

Register for a FREE TRIAL of iScopeCloud NOW!