Services
Xactimate Estimate Writing
for Independent Adjusters
An independent adjuster gets paid per file, not per hour, and there are always more files than hours in a storm cycle. Send us the scope sheet from your inspection and we write the coded Xactimate estimate, priced and ready, delivered back as an ESX file for your own platform. You keep the inspection, the judgment, and the file. We handle the production writing.
Why Independent Adjusters Outsource Estimate Writing
An independent adjuster is measured on file count and cycle time at the same time, and those two numbers work against each other. Writing a fully coded Xactimate estimate correctly, room by room, elevation by elevation, takes real time in the software. That time comes directly out of the hours available to inspect the next file.
Separating the writing from the inspection is not a shortcut and it is not an admission that the adjuster cannot do the work. It is a production decision. The inspection is where the adjusting judgment lives: what happened, what caused it, what the coverage supports, and what the scope should be. Writing the estimate from that scope into coded line items is a mechanical, repeatable task once the scope is set. Separating those two tasks lets an adjuster spend inspection hours on inspections and hand the coding to a desk that does nothing else all day.
What never changes hands is the file itself. The adjuster's name is on the estimate, the adjuster's judgment set the scope, and the adjuster controls what gets submitted to the carrier. This desk produces a document from the scope it is given. It does not inspect the property, does not decide coverage, and does not stand in for the adjuster on the claim.
The Scope-Sheet-to-Estimate Workflow
This is a production pipeline, not a consultation. You send documentation, you get back a file you can use immediately.
You Send the Scope
Field notes, measurements, photos, and your inspection findings. Whatever format you already use to document the loss is what you send. Nothing has to be reformatted before it comes to us.
We Code the Estimate
Every line item is written and priced against current pricing for the property's zip code. Quantities, categories, and selectors are set from your scope, not assumed from a template.
ESX Built for Your Platform
The estimate is packaged as an importable ESX file that opens in your own Xactimate account, plus a PDF. You review it in the software you already use, on your license.
File Returned to You
You get the file back, typically next-day of receiving complete scope documentation. You attach it to the claim, submit it, or send it back to us with corrections if the scope changes.
The File Stays Yours
Nothing about the claim decision, the inspection record, or the carrier relationship transfers to us. The estimate is a deliverable. The file, the judgment, and the outcome are yours.
ESX Delivery Into Your Own Platform
The deliverable is an importable ESX file, not a PDF you have to re-key. An ESX opens directly in your own Xactimate account, under your own license, so the line items, quantities, and pricing arrive already structured the way the software expects. You are not copying figures from a document into a blank estimate. You open the file and it is there.
That matters more for an adjuster than it does for most other requesters of this kind of work. A contractor receiving a supplement is usually forwarding it to someone else. An adjuster receiving an ESX is often the last set of eyes on the file before it goes to the carrier or into the claim system, so the estimate has to land in a form that requires no rebuilding, no re-entry, and no risk of a transcription error between one platform and another.
A PDF copy comes with every file for your records and for anything that needs to be shared outside the software. The ESX is what saves the time.
Storm Season and File-Count Surge
File counts do not rise gradually after a hail or wind event. They spike, and they spike on top of whatever caseload was already open. An adjuster who was managing a normal rotation the week before a storm can be sitting on triple the files a week after it, with the same number of working hours in a day.
That is the exact condition this desk is built to absorb. Scope sheets come in as inspections are completed rather than in one batch at the end of a surge, and each file is written and returned on its own clock. A busier week does not change how a single estimate gets coded. The desk either has capacity for the volume or it says so, but the coding standard applied to file forty is the same one applied to file one.
Consistency Across a Batch of Files
An independent adjuster is graded on quality and cycle time together, not one or the other. A fast estimate that gets kicked back for miscoded items costs more time than it saved, and a perfectly coded estimate that sits unwritten for a week costs the adjuster on the cycle-time side of the scorecard regardless of how clean it eventually looks.
The same production discipline applies whether one scope sheet comes in or twenty come in the same week. Selectors, categories, and pricing logic do not drift from file three to file eighteen because the desk is busy. That consistency is what lets an adjuster send a batch during a surge and trust that every file in it meets the same bar, instead of spot-checking each one before it goes out.
Carrier-Specific Formatting Expectations
Different carriers expect different things from an estimate before it moves smoothly through their system: how categories are grouped, how narrative notes are attached to specific line items, how a scope is broken out by elevation or by room. An estimate that ignores those expectations is not necessarily wrong on the numbers, but it invites questions that slow the file down.
An estimate that is formatted the way a given carrier expects to receive it tends to come back with fewer of those questions. That is not a claim about beating a carrier or maximizing a number. It is a claim about friction: a correctly formatted file reads as complete on first pass, and a file that does not match the carrier's expected structure reads as unfinished even when the scope itself is accurate. Formatting to the carrier's expectation is part of what this desk does with every file, not an upcharge on top of the writing.
The Professional Boundary
This desk writes the estimate. The adjuster adjusts the claim. Those are two different jobs and this page is only about the first one.
The Estimate Company does not inspect properties on the adjuster's behalf, does not make coverage or cause-of-loss determinations, does not adjust claims, and does not represent the homeowner or the contractor on the file. The scope, the judgment, and the inspection stay with the licensed adjuster who sent the file. We convert that scope into a coded, carrier-ready Xactimate estimate and return it as fast as the documentation allows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you write my Xactimate estimate from a scope sheet?
Yes. Send the scope sheet, field notes, measurements, and photos from your inspection. We convert that into a fully coded Xactimate estimate, priced to the correct zip code, and return it with an importable ESX file for your own platform.
Do you make the coverage decision or adjust the claim?
No. This desk writes the estimate from the scope you provide. You perform the inspection, apply your judgment on coverage and cause of loss, and control the file. We do not adjust the claim and we do not represent the homeowner or the contractor.
How does the file come back to me?
As an importable ESX file that opens directly in your own Xactimate platform, plus a PDF copy of the estimate. Nothing needs to be retyped or re-coded on your end before it goes to the carrier or the file.
Is outsourcing estimate writing normal for an independent adjuster?
Yes. Writing the estimate is production work that can be separated from the inspection and the adjusting decision. Plenty of IAs use a writing desk during storm season or on a standing basis to hold cycle time steady without cutting corners on any single file.
Can you handle a batch of files during storm season?
Yes. Send scope sheets as they come in rather than waiting to batch them. Each file gets written and returned on its own timeline, and a higher volume of incoming files does not change the coding standard applied to any one of them.
What if the carrier's estimate is already written and just needs review?
That is a different service. Auditing an existing estimate or a prior company's supplement line by line is handled on the estimate review page, not here. This page is for writing a new estimate from your scope, not reviewing one that already exists.
Send the next scope sheet before the file count gets ahead of you.
Field notes, measurements, and photos in. Coded Xactimate estimate with an ESX file back, next-day.