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The really sad point, and its probably political, is that Simsol, by far, is the best flood estimating program out there. Something just is not right with the companies forcing us to use Exactimate, which is a contractors program. Something is not right in river city, folks.

If its true that the file reviewer can change the estimate that has the inspectors estimate(adjuster-contractor) this should be brought out in all the litigation of the last storms and all the litigation on future storms. This could be the deal breaker on the xactimate domination of insurance loss estimates as the most reliable. I still remember Isabel 2003 when Simsol was blamed for the low ball offers that congress investigated for one year. It was not Simsol that held the gun, it was the field adjuster, the file reviewer and most culpable has to be the carriers, who have the final say. Some day soon a person will prove to a jury that page after page of a hand written estimate of damage in more accurate than xactimate or any other software program. Each page would be numbered, with sub totals and adding machine tapes. Just like it was done 45year ago.

The software programs are tools that should be used like adding machines and word processors, nothing more. Stop trying to replace knowledge and experience with spyware

Well said Ray. You, I, and a number of others have completed hand written estimates with the adding machine tapes, and polaroid photos, which acutally worked well. Estimating software is merely a tool to get you from point A to point B. The person behind the keys is the ultimate tool to properly scope and write a good estimate. Sofware are guidlines only and calculators only. The biggest problem I see is, some of the companies, not vendors, will not allow us to use current catastrophe prices. As we all know, within a few weeks of a major event, prices of material and labor go up, sometimes, way up, yet we are told to utilized the prices in the MS/B Integraclaim database, which usually, is not sufficient.

We recently got an update through ComCentral of our price database. It increased shingles $1.59 a square. What a joke, when the shingles have gone up 10 to 20% due to the large numbers of hail claims in many areas. Yet, we are held to those prices. I do understand that if we used the realistic prices, it may throw the schedule into a higher amount, which may be the reason the companies are doing this.

Dan I leased xactimate in November and found the $39.95 download from xactimate very good(I printed the book). The reason I leased was all the "daily" advertizers required the program with the carriers profile. I have now let my 90 lease go into "default" and it will cost me  a giggie to reboot. Just make sure you get the volume to pay for the lease if you are trying to work daily claims for about  2 very low fee schedule out there, who want as much underwriting info as estimating info. Just the lease cost you about $5.00 per day and you would need one new loss a day to make as much as the Walmart greeter.

Slip and fall Hall went back to my roots.

Does not the little blue picture book icon exist any longer?  Where you click on it & bring up an exterior/framing/roof/kitchen/bath/etc, and then click on that area to bring up your most common things?  Been a couple years since use X, but that was a handy icon...especially on the sliding glass doors that don't show up in doors but in the window category instead. 

That place where you type in something to search is your flashlight in the darkness. Keep working with it, and you will get proficient with it.

Mike's idea works (finding that graphic image to select repair items) but as a daily user, if I can't find something - I go to the search thing. Type a couple keywords, and make the software do the work.

If you are working within the "sketch" window, the search thing is a small part of the window and kind of myopic. If you go to "estimate view" where you have more of the screen available to see your repair steps, the "search" area is bigger, you see more of the hits from your search, and can read more of the description to see if it is what you want or not.

People curse Xactimate because the doorknobs and lock-sets are in "finish hardware" rather than doors.  The Search feature will cut through all that smoke, you just have to get used to it.

When I was using Integra last year it had some similar issues where it was hard to figure out what category the repair items were located, and the Minimum charges were often not in the same category as the trade - that one drove me nuts until I found the advanced search in Integra.  It's not just Xactimate that has those issues.

I have been using Xactimate since 1993, yet I recently spent about $80 to get the 2 disks to train on X-25 and found them helpful. This is not easy software, but very powerful. Same could be said of Photoshop, but professional graphics people take the time to master it.

To be fair, I don't have the Contents module of Xactimate and the staff adjuster I was assisting really likes it - as explained in that other thread (click the link).

I was simply filling out the Excel import template for him.   It's not a bad concept, you can E-mail the blank spreadsheet to the Insured and have them fill it out.  Almost everyone has Excel.  Then you don't have to copy and past the items into your software, it is designed to read that excel form, puts it into the Contents module of Xactimate that will perform some features beyond a simple spreadsheet in terms of locating replacement quotes for those items.

I notice that Simsol is advertising on this site their similar product that finds Like Kind and Quality pricing on the Web.  I haven't worked with either of these new products personally.  Maybe others can share their experiences with them.

All,

After almost 3 years of development and testing, Simsol officially rolled out our new web-based contents replacement solution, ContentsClaims.com, last Monday.  Since then several insurance carriers have signed up to demo the product.  by all early indications most if not all will become full time users.  It's a great way do complete contents inventories, is totally web-based (brand X is not) and the number of accessible contents items is almost unlimited.   We charge about ten bucks an inventory and the number of inventories users buy never expires.  To sign up for a 5-inventory (free) demo, contact Bob Dijordjevic at 1-800-447-4676 x328 for a secure user name and password.