Estimating Insurance Repairs

This section explains how to use the BidMagic construction estimating software for insurance estimating.

Insurance Repair Estimating

Repairs of fire, flood or wind damage can vary in size depending on how much damage there is.

• If there is only a small amount of damage, you won't need to do much dimensioning and you can treat the job as a very small project (see page 344).
• If there is more serious damage, treat it as a remodeling project, with information about each damaged room on a separate room card.
• If the building is completely damaged and you don't need a room-by-room breakdown of costs, consider the project to be a gut/rehab.

If you do a great deal of insurance work, you'll probably want to add unit prices to the price book, covering any special work (such as smoke odor sealing) that you do.

Since most insurance companies require a room-by-room breakdown of costs, use the Room Report (see page 338) to show that information.

NOTE: The BidMagic Room Report only lists an approximate breakdown of costs for each room. You can use Goldenseal for a listing of exact costs for each room.

If you are expected to use a different overhead and/or profit percentage than you are used to, you may need to use Fudge factors or other modifications to keep your costs in line, while still presenting prices in a format acceptable to the insurance company (see page 158).