How to Automate Xactware

Xactimate is the language a property claim is settled in

Xactware, now part of Verisk and sold as its property estimating line, makes Xactimate: the software a hail-damaged roof or a flooded basement gets translated into money with. Staff adjusters use it, independents use it, and so does every restoration contractor, roofer and mitigation crew that wants to be paid by an insurer rather than argue with one.

What makes it unusual is that both sides of the negotiation write in it. The adjuster scopes the loss and prices it. The contractor scopes the same loss and prices it. The two estimates get compared line by line, and the settlement is whatever the two sides agree those lines are worth.

So the estimate is not paperwork that follows the job. It is the job. A line item missed on a Tuesday is money the contractor never sees, and a homeowner sitting under a tarp is waiting on a file being passed between two companies.

Cycle time is decided between the estimate and the approval

Writing the estimate is the skilled half. It is not the half that takes the weeks.

A supplement goes up for the rotten decking nobody could see until the shingles came off. Then somebody checks the carrier's portal on Monday to see whether it was approved. Then Wednesday. Then the following Monday, because the desk adjuster changed and the new one has questions.

Around that sits everything else with its own website. Assignments landing in a program queue that has to be acknowledged before it goes to somebody quicker. The city's permit portal, refreshed until the inspection clears. The mortgage company holding the claim cheque, with its own endorsement process. Subcontractor certificates that expire quietly and stop a crew at the gate.

Every one of those is a person, a login and a status that has not changed yet. In a normal week a coordinator opens the same portal a dozen times and finds nothing new eleven of them.

Xactware

Supplement status without the refresh Whether each supplement filed weeks ago has been approved, reduced or ignored, read off every carrier portal and gathered into one list.

Assignments accepted before they lapse Program and carrier queues checked through the day, so nothing sits unacknowledged long enough to cost the file.

The paper that holds up a job Permit decisions, mortgage endorsement progress and subcontractor certificates followed to their answer instead of remembered.

XactXpert checks the estimate, not the claim around it

Xactimate does far more of this on its own than most crews use, and it is worth knowing where its edge actually falls.

Sketch draws the structure once and works in two or three dimensions, with a cutaway that opens up an interior, and Sketch AR takes measurements from a phone on site. XactScope automates roof and exterior scoping inside Sketch, which is what makes storm volume survivable. Price lists are researched market by market and republished monthly, with off-cycle updates when a catastrophe moves prices faster than the calendar. XactXpert runs carrier guidelines as live rules inside the estimate, so a problem surfaces while the file is open rather than after a reviewer sends it back.

XactAnalysis carries the traffic. Assignments arrive with the loss file attached, and the finished estimate goes back over the same network in ESX form, into the carrier's review queue, with nothing re-keyed.

All of which is inside the pipe. XactXpert validates against the rules loaded into it. XactAnalysis moves what flows over its own network. Neither can open a carrier portal that is not on that network, or the city's permit page, and read the answer sitting there.

Every open claim can know where its money is

Put those logins on a schedule and chasing stops being something somebody has to remember on a Monday.

Every open supplement checked across every carrier portal each morning, with a list of what moved, what was reduced and what has sat untouched for three weeks. New assignments spotted in a program queue within minutes, so the acknowledgement goes in before the file gets reassigned. Permit status watched until the inspection is scheduled, and the crew booked against a date that exists.

Then the ones that surface late and hurt. The mortgage company's progress on releasing the claim cheque, checked weekly instead of discovered when the supplier wants paying. Subcontractor certificates verified against the broker's own site before a truck rolls, not after. A price list update compared against estimates still awaiting approval, so a line priced under the market is caught while it can be revised.

The rule is the one any estimator applies to a junior. Let it look, compare and draft. Filing a supplement, agreeing a settlement figure and writing to a homeowner stay with the person whose licence is attached.

An estimate still leaves with somebody's name on it

Scoping the loss and defending the line items is the trade. Opening eleven portals to learn nothing has changed is not, and it is what eats the coordinator's day.

WebRun is an agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens the carrier portal, the program queue, the permit page or the mortgage servicer, reads each the way your coordinator would, and puts the answer on one list.

It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, restricted to the sites you allow. You can watch a run and stop it. Anything submitted to a carrier or sent to a homeowner is drafted and waits.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names the systems it opens.