Short answer: Xactimate is the estimating software virtually every Florida carrier uses to scope and price claims. It produces line-item estimates with standardized pricing. Understanding the line-item structure lets you identify where scope is missing: demolition, drying, protection, code upgrades, matching, or contents line items that should be present but aren't.
What Xactimate actually is
Xactware (a Verisk company) maintains a line-item pricing database covering tens of thousands of repair tasks, keyed to local market pricing. Carriers, independent adjusters, and public adjusters all use it. A typical property claim estimate contains hundreds of line items.
The structure
Each line item is:
- Code (e.g., DRY 1, WDR PLAMC)
- Description (Labor minimum, Water extraction, Drywall replacement per sq ft)
- Quantity (qty × unit)
- Unit price (from the local pricing DB)
- Subtotal (qty × price)
- Total with overhead & profit (O&P) applied if eligible
Where carriers commonly under-scope
- Demolition and removal: carriers often omit the labor + disposal of damaged materials
- Drying equipment hours: rented equipment hours for drying matter; carriers often under-specify
- Protection / containment: plastic sheeting, floor protection, dust control
- Code upgrades: law and ordinance items when the policy covers them
- Matching: replacement of continuous areas per Fla. Stat. 626.9744
- Painting labor: "paint to match" sometimes specified as smaller area than actually needed
- Contents: personal property not scheduled or depreciated too aggressively
- Overhead & profit: 10% overhead + 10% profit often not applied to jobs that qualify
- General conditions: for commercial jobs, permit fees, dumpsters, temp facilities
Red flags in a carrier Xactimate
- Estimate is less than 10 pages for a significant loss (too few line items)
- Drying hours dramatically lower than dry-out contractor actuals
- No contents section
- No code-upgrade section despite L&O coverage
- Labor minimum for damage that clearly exceeds minimum scope
- Matching ignored despite tile / siding / finish damage
What a public adjuster does
Ocean Point prepares Xactimate estimates using the same database the carrier uses, scoped to the actual damage. Our estimates routinely contain 2-5× more line items than carrier estimates for the same property: because they capture the full scope.