I spoke with an MSB rep that is a friend of mine and what I am hearing is that MSB, sometimes in late 08, will be coming out with a completely new program to blow the rest of the programs out of the water. I believe this friend and am looking forward to seeing the program come out.

My take is:I know 2 programs now that look as good as MSB and both are easy to learn.  This does not seem to be the key to blowing all other programs out of the water. Its the contractors who spread the word  to the insurance carriers and the Utah sales teams that convince these same carriers that "their" data base is the King Orem version and is the  infallable word. Beside's it cannot be modified. Seems that the key to sales.

Tom,

They used to have a program like that.  They called it Boeckhs.  It was easier to use than Integraclaim, took far less time to write up a claim, and was relatively accurate.

Last year at an industry trade show I talked to a VP over at MSB and he told me they had 50 PEOPLE dedicated to their pricing database.  I just had to laugh. Every tiime I see a new estimating system try to enter the adjusting space the owners think the market is just going to drop what they have been using and trusting for the last decade.  DDS tried it.  Powerclaim tried it.  Symbility is currently trying it.  And now MSB wants to re-invent the wheel - I hope they can do it before they lose all their major carriers. 

I am not knocking these companies, you should be proud of the work you and your team put into them to get them to market but, come on, it's really a jungle out there and insurance carriers move very slowly.  I just returned from an insurance technology show where the next generation of Claims Management Systems were being presented.  Many carriers are still in the AS400 and COBOL language world.  Before any next generation of estimating software is adoped by insurance carriers on any widespread basis, the carriers will first have to adopt the new generation of CMS so their computers can "talk" to the new generation of estimating software.  And, in my opinion, it will be years before this shift happens.

It is sad to see the industry blindly accepting Utah's pricing just because so many contractors use it.  However, I do see a need to somehow try to standardize restoration pricing for the common items (roofing, drywall, paint, etc.) or at least an acceptable range of 5-10% in any given area.  I just ran a report from our data warehouse that contains almost a million estimates and our users stay with our database pricing approximately 91% of the time.  6% of the prices have been raised and the remaining 3% were lowered by our users.  I think that is a great reflection on the Craftsman database, its 3-digit zip location factoring system and the work of our cost consultants (considerably less than 50 I assure you!).

Time will only tell if there is a better "mousetrap" out there for property estimating and I look forward to seeing MSB's new version.  However, from what I am seeing out there in the software trenches every day, if I were upper management at MSB, I would sell all my estimating clients to SIMSOL and stick to what MSB knows best - underwriting valuations (and they better bar the door there because Xact just released a product called "360Value" which is a valuation tool combining XactValue and ISO statistics.  Very impressive demo but they wouldn't release the PRICE).

As for our shop, we have some very cool applications and new features coming out at the end of '07 and first part of '08.  The business and competition is still fun and we will keep plodding along, keep an eye on "Utah" and play golf every chance we get.

Just my 2 cents....

I agree with all of you. MSB is sorely lacking in the California fires and not enough items in the database. I am with John on standardized pricing, particularily on everyday items, ie, drywall, paint, etc. I commend John and Simsol for their fantastic achievements. Simsol is a good program. As far as MSB creating a new wheel, they have a long way to go to achieve that and they must do it hurridely, as Utah is gaining momemtum everyday.

Tom that is my understanding from talking with a MSB rep in like 2006 yet timing can be hard for Sales to nail down. Do not ask me how I know. As to blowing way everyone I have to say John’s experience is in line with ours at HRI.

The adjusting industry does not get overly excited about a new mouse trap even if it is better. Boeckh got out in front because they started with a package a couple adjusters had developed initially on a Tandy computer and then ported it to DOS. Xactimate came on the market and then Simsol I think. Boeckh was a strong player with great databases I understand but they moved to Windows 3.0 (16-bit) and the version had issues and they never bother to move to Windows 95 (32-bit). To save some large accounts they licensed DDS as IntegriClaim and then when Boston Ventures rolled Marshall&Swift and Boeckh together they picked up DDS who owned the code to IntegriClaim. They called the new company Marshall Swift/Boeckh or MSB and flipped it to MDA out of Canada.

From my point of view Xactimate continued to gain ground over time and Boeckh lost ground. Simsol went on to become best know in the flood claims market. Xactimate is impressive in a marketing sense as to how after gaining the upper hand over Boeckh they have never had a player that offered serious competition. Xactimate continued to grow by finding new accounts and often at the expensive of the other earlier market players. Well there are Best (west coast) and Vedders (north east coast) that are old line companies. In fact Steve Vedders software was the bases of the Marshall and Swift package called AccuPro he related to me but I never saw AccuPro because it was not active when we got into developing estimating software in 1995/1996.

DDS (engine in IntegriClaim today), PowerClaim and Symbility (I can not remember the name of the founder of Symbility first estimating software package that he sold to Prism that was owned by Crawford) came out of the 1990’s and most on CADO know their history. I know there are other developers working to get to the market place with a better mouse trap. Who knows the future? Will ISO drop the Xactimate ball like in 100% of historical cases in our industry? No estimating software package has thrived in the market place when its founder was removed from the company. ISO will be the first owner to break this pattern if they can keep Xactimate a viable estimating solution for the next 20 years.

We all know estimating today has become dependent on supplied materials and labor cost databases and the engine that drives the software matters little if it works at some level. I do not expect this will change in the life time of any reading this. The sad part is the adjusting skill sets of yesterday year are being lost at a fast pace each year. All of the estimating software packages on the market to day are backed up with web solutions that can track and report pricing deviations from any ‘Norm’ given. Yet where the pricing info comes from Xactnet, ComCentral, Simsol’s ClaimWire, PowerClaim Net Services or the Symbility solution it still can not take people off of the street and make adjusters out of them.

What is the answer today? Technology can NEVER replace the human element but if the human element is not there then the carriers have little choice as to try to manage claims using technology. How many of the top tier of carriers trust the ability of their adjusters to price out the damage repair cost of a risk they have insured? Most carriers today only use adjusters to manage a claim file and leave the pricing up to the contractor it seems. We estimate there are at least 10,000 staff adjusters with NO access to property estimating software and are basically totally dependent on the local contractors for pricing information. It is a system that actually works for all parties from the best I can tell. This practice is not only used by the second and third tier carriers I personally know.  

For the most part Gale has the history of estimating systems correct.  And thank you for your kind comment about us being the best flood program.  We have always been the most popular among flood adjusters because that was my entry into the storm business many moons ago.  In my opinion we became and continue to be popular among adjusters who have a say in what estimating system to use is because of ease of use.  If it wasn’t easy back in 1984 adjusters simply would not have used it.  Actually the first 100 or so copies of our first version were given out to numerous flood and wind adjusters during Hurricane Hugo

People, who don't know us or have not used us in the past, sometimes take pot shots at us for basically using the same scoping method my brother and I came up with in 1984 and have not made it “flashier”.  Windows made it look more modern but it is still basically the same design.  Back in '84 we had only 46 materials and 414 operations in the basic residential database.  Now we have 10 times that number.  The reason we have not changed what we call the "Virtual Scope Sheet" is that it is the fastest way to scope a loss that I know of.  Over the years in other programs I have seen number and letter codes, bar coding, optical scanning of paper sheets, scoping from graphical images on the screen, drawing diagrams and dragging items into rooms - you name it.  Those of you who know me if there was a better, easier, faster way to scope a loss it would be in our application. 

It doesn't matter whether the damages were caused by wind, flood, fire, hail, VMM or whatever - estimating is still estimating.  It doesn't matter if the drywall was damaged by any one of these perils, it still has to be removed, replaced and painted.  There are peril-specific scopes, indeed, and they are also in the databases of the most popular systems.

Pricing databases, like software applications are never truly fully done.  New methods of restoration, new materials and new terminologies come along and eventually find their way into all the major systems.  Pricing is and will always be a bear.  We update our pricing every quarter using Craftsman's reference data and our own research.  It's not perfect (no database is) but it gets our adjusters close enough to get the loss "adjusted" and the claim settled.  If it didn't we would not have been around for going on 21 years now and I wouldn't feel comfortable appearing or speaking  at conferences, trade shows and property adjusting events.

On these boards I have heard adjusters speak highly of their systems of choice such as MSB's DDS and Powerclaim.  They talk highly of their tech support and customer service.  That's good for all of us who work in the claims business.  We get enough grief from the carriers, insureds, public adjusters and contractors every day and don't need more from our software suppliers.  I honestly feel sorry for adjusters having to use X.  I hear their complaints every week.

Will the lawsuit pending in LA change anything?  Probably not but it would be nice if some of those first tier carriers wise up and see the X/ISO mix is probably not very good for our industry on so many levels.  The carriers do have credible options in the software they give to their adjusters.  But, based on the recent article from LA, the big carriers seem to be traveling in packs for the moment.  Sure would be nice to “turn one out of the herd” and show them how easy estimating software can be.

That's my blog for the day.....back to work now.  Thanks for reading.