Reading the estimate
The estimate is the claim, in writing: everything you'll be paid, and everything held back, is on these pages. This guide reads one the way adjusters write them — top block, line items, summary — so you can find the three numbers that decide your money and catch the deductions that shouldn't be there.
Every insurer estimate (most are produced in Xactimate or a sibling system) opens with a summary. Find these:
Then the deductible is subtracted (sometimes inside the ACV payment, sometimes shown separately — the checker asks which, because it changes the holdback arithmetic). If your summary shows a line called Net Claim and a separate statement of amounts "recoverable upon completion," you've found the two numbers the whole claim turns on.
Each repair line carries a quantity, a unit price, and — the part to read — its own depreciation figure, sometimes as dollars, sometimes as a percentage, occasionally flagged (NR) for nonrecoverable. Three checks per page of lines:
Behind the numbers sits the policy's Loss Settlement condition — the 180-day notice language, the completion requirement, any schedule endorsement reference. Read it once, fully. The estimate tells you the money; the conditions tell you the clocks; the checker puts them on one screen.
Run your own numbers. The free checker takes your state, your dates, and the figures on the insurer's estimate — and returns the dollars still held back, your real deadline, and the next document to send. Run the checker →
The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the proof packet that releases the money, the letters that protect the clocks, and the complaint pack for when the stall continues.
One payment, yours to keep. We never ask you to upload your policy — you file everything yourself. See everything inside the kit →