How to Read Your Insurance Claim Estimate, Line by Line

If you read only the last page of your insurance claim estimate, you have read a number that can't tell you whether the right repair was priced. The money moves earlier, line by line: which damaged items got a line, how many units each got, and the price beside it.

If your contractor has called the carrier's twenty-page estimate short and the check is smaller still, part of the gap between the bid and the check is generally the deductible and any depreciation, which the summary page shows. Much of the rest usually sits in the lines, and those you can check yourself.

This article walks through the summary page, a single line, the lines around the repair, and where an estimate and a bid part ways. Property People Law works only for policyholders. Every policy is different, every claim turns on its own facts.

The Summary Page: How an Insurance Claim Estimate Becomes a Check

Start at the back anyway: it is where the estimate turns into a check. The summary opens with the line item total, adds material sales tax and overhead and profit where included, and arrives at replacement cost value, the estimate's price for the whole repair; that is the figure a contractor's bid belongs beside. Depreciation, the deductible, and any prior payment come off to leave the net claim, and our guide to recoverable depreciation covers the part that may come back after the work.

An estimate that touches more than one coverage can carry a summary for each. Read each one before the grand total: on a common homeowners form, a shed or detached garage generally falls under other structures coverage, which has its own, smaller limit, so where a line sits can change which limit it draws on.

Reading a Line Item, Column by Column

Your estimate is grouped by room, and each room opens with the measurements its quantities are figured from, so that is where a short line can start. A line runs from description, quantity, and unit price to replacement cost, depreciation, and actual cash value. Read the description first: tear off and replace, or only detach and reset; laminated shingles or three-tab. Estimates sometimes price a smaller job than the damage calls for, and the description shows which.

The estimate names its price list, a short code for a region and a date. After a large storm, local prices can run ahead of a list compiled before it. Ask the adjuster in writing which list was used and whether it allowed for conditions after the storm.

The Lines That Pay for Work Around the Repair

Some lines pay for what it takes to do the repair. Waste covers material lost to cutting, so the new-shingle line can run a tenth or so above the tear-off line for the same roof. A minimum charge is the least a trade takes to come out for a small job, and a small repair priced without one can come in below what a contractor charges to show up. Detach and reset pays to remove something undamaged that's in the way and put it back. On your estimate, look for waste on the roofing and flooring lines, a minimum where a trade has a small job, and detach and reset for each fixture on a damaged wall.

On a common homeowners form, debris removal is generally paid within the damaged property's limit, and the reasonable cost of protecting the property from further damage, the tarp and the plywood, is generally paid too. If the estimate has no line for your tarp, send the invoice.

Overhead and profit, the general contractor's charge for running the job, is commonly 20%, written as 10 and 10. Sales tax on materials has its own column, and permit fees sit at the end with the other soft costs. If any of the three doesn't appear, ask the adjuster in writing whether it was priced, and where.

Why the Estimate Runs Lower Than Your Contractor's Bid

An Item Is Missing

A damaged item with no line has no price in the total, and the items left off can be small: moving contents, plastic over the floors, a second coat of finish. Walk the house with the estimate and list what has no line; photographs and the contractor's itemized bid put each one in front of the adjuster.

A Quantity Is Smaller

A wall measured at 100 square feet instead of 126, or a roof slope left out, shrinks each line it feeds: drywall, paint, shingles, felt, waste. Compare the estimate's measurements with your contractor's before comparing a single price.

A Unit Price Is Lower

When the item and quantity match and the line still differs, the gap is in the unit price. Your contractor's itemized bid, and a second local bid for the same lines, are the usual evidence of what the work costs where you are.

The Bid Includes Work the Policy May Not Cover

A common homeowners form generally pays for material of like kind and quality and excludes wear and tear, and code-required work generally falls under its own ordinance-or-law coverage, on that form up to 10% of the dwelling limit. Ask your contractor to list upgrades and code items separately; the bid then shows which part of the gap is price and which is coverage.

How Property People Law Reads a Claim Estimate

We read the summary page against the payment letter, then set the estimate beside your contractor's bid and mark each item in one but not the other, and each quantity and unit price that differs. We check the price list's region and date against your date of loss.

If the estimate holds up, we say so. When the two sides still disagree on the amount of the loss, a common homeowners form carries an appraisal clause; whether it reaches scope as well as price turns on the wording and state law.

Our residential and commercial property work is generally on contingency — we only get paid from the recovery, not your pocket. Past results in other cases don't guarantee outcomes in any new matter, and every claim turns on its own facts.