$1,000 An Hour: Five Xactimate Codes for Water Damage Success

www.claimsdelegates.com

$1,000 An Hour: Five Xactimate Codes for Water Damage Success

Five Ways to Rev Up Your Mitigation Revenue.

Would you like to make $1,000 an hour? Did you know that you’ve already got the tools to do so? You’re probably already doing these things. But you’re not getting paid for it if you’re not properly documenting your losses. A properly trained and equipped Water Technician should be creating at least $1,000 per hour of revenue for his or her company. Do you know what your hourly revenue is currently? For better or worse, we all have to use Xactimate for water damage estimates (aren’t they actually bills?). If we have to use it, then why not find every line item available to help our bottom line? It’s plain and simple— master your Xactimate and make more money. Here are five simple things that your crews are likely already doing. These are things, that if written down properly, can generate real profits for you. For our example, we’re going to imagine a carpeted room with wet carpet measuring 10 x 10 (100 ft2 of Floor Area).

Carpet Mask – Xactimate Code:WTR-MASKFL You charge: $0.41ft2 Time to Install: 3minRevenue/Hr: $820 Floor masking is adhesive-backed plastic. It comes in rolls and is applied using a handled applicator. I recommend using it on all entry and traffic areas that the crew will walk through during the course of their work. Just make sure it gets removed once the drying is done.

Cover and Protect –Xactimate Code: WTR-PROT You charge: $0.29ft2 Time to Install: 1.5minRevenue/Hr: $1,160 Painter’s plastic is cheap to buy and fast to install. You can get it in standard 9×12 sheets so you don’t even have to waste time cutting. And at 29 cents a foot, each sheet is 31 bucks in your pocket! Protecting is one of the most profitable things you can do on a mitigation job. I recommend the Frank’s Red Hot method: put it oneverything!

Water Extraction – Xactimate Code: WTR-EXT You charge: $0.53ft2 Time to Install: 3minRevenue/Hr: $1,060 Water extraction is one of our most requested services, as well as one of the most profitable, if you do it efficiently. Truck-mounted equipment is much faster than portables. The key to proper documentation is getting the entire area extracted into your notes.Water Extraction

Weighted – Xactimate Code: WTR-EXTW You charge: $0.92 ft2 Time to Install: 4minRevenue/HR: $1,380 If you don’t own a Water Claw, go buy one right now. A lot of people say that they take too long and aren’t worth the hassle. A lot of people are allergic to money. If used properly, weighted extraction takes a little longer than a regular wand. And the price per foot is nearly DOUBLE! At almost a DOLLAR per foot extracted, your ROI could be less than a day.Anti-Microbrial – Xactimate Code:WTR-GRM You charge: $0.22 ft2 Time to Install:1.5minRevenue/HR: $880 Using germicide spray isn’t as profitable as extraction, but it issomething that a lot of mitigation contractors forget. Using Anti-Microbrial sends the signal to your client that you care about them and their environment. It’s also a nice CYA method that you cancharge for. We all know that Xactimate is a required part of what we do. As long as that’s the case, why not use every advantage we can? If you’d like to learn more about how these five steps fit into our “20-step Mitigation Plan”, click here for a free PDF version.