What Is the Xactimate Format in a Home Insurance Claim?
It's the line-by-line repair estimate software most insurers use to price your claim, breaking costs into materials, labor, and local rates.
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Where the numbers come from
Xactimate pulls material and labor costs from a regional price list for your area, updated regularly. If your adjuster's estimate looks low, check whether the price list matches current local costs. Contractors sometimes find the database runs behind what they'd actually charge.
Line items you should check
Every repair gets broken into separate line items. Tear-out, materials, labor, disposal, and overhead each get their own line. If your roof claim only lists shingles but not underlayment or flashing, that's missing scope, not a disagreement about price. Your written estimate shows every line the adjuster included.
Your contractor's estimate
A contractor's bid and an Xactimate estimate often don't match because contractors price by their own costs, not a standardized database. If your contractor quotes more than the insurer's Xactimate total, ask the adjuster to explain the gap line by line rather than just the bottom number.
Depreciation on the estimate
Xactimate calculates replacement cost first, then subtracts depreciation for the age and condition of what's damaged, leaving the actual cash value. Your policy determines whether you're paid that lower figure upfront or reimbursed the rest once repairs are done. Your declarations page says which type you have.
If the Xactimate total leaves out line items your contractor says the job needs, or leans on a price list below what repairs cost near you, that gap is real money out of pocket. What your policy actually pays for rebuilding, versus what the estimate offers, is worth checking against other coverage before you're locked into a renewal built on the same numbers.
Can you get a copy of the Xactimate estimate yourself
Yes. Ask the adjuster for the full printed estimate, not just the settlement letter that states a total. The complete report lists every line item, the unit price, the quantity, and which price list region was used. Insurers don't usually volunteer this document, but it's part of your claim file and you're entitled to see how your number was built.
Once you have it, read it against the scope of damage your contractor identified, not just the dollar figure at the bottom. Two estimates can list the same total and still disagree about what work is being paid for. A roof line item priced fairly but missing a tear-off charge, or a water claim that prices drywall but skips the insulation behind it, will still look complete to someone who hasn't done this before. The report is long and broken into codes and abbreviations that take some getting used to, but every number on it traces back to a specific task.
If something looks off, you can ask the adjuster to rerun the estimate with corrected scope or updated pricing. This is called a reinspection or a supplement, and it's a normal part of the process, not a confrontation. Bring specifics. Name the missing line item, point to the current local price for that material, and note the measurement that doesn't match the damage. Adjusters revise estimates often when a contractor or public adjuster points to something concrete in the report itself.
If the gap doesn't close after that conversation, most states let you request an independent appraisal, where a neutral third party reviews both estimates and sets the number. Some policies require this step before a lawsuit is even an option. Check your declarations page or the appraisal clause in your policy for how that process works and what it costs, since the fee is sometimes split between you and the insurer.
What do the codes and abbreviations on the estimate mean
The report is built from short codes, not plain descriptions. RFG means roofing, DRY means drywall, PNT means paint. Each line also carries a quantity unit like SF for square feet, LF for linear feet, or EA for each. Once you know a handful of these, the estimate stops looking like a spreadsheet of nonsense and starts reading like an actual list of tasks.
Some codes matter more than others when you're checking for missing scope. O&P stands for overhead and profit, a markup usually added when a job needs a general contractor to coordinate multiple trades. Some insurers leave it off a simple one-trade repair, which is standard, but if your job involves a roofer, a drywall crew, and painters, and O&P isn't on the estimate, that's worth asking about directly.
RCV and ACV show up near the totals. RCV is replacement cost value, what it costs to redo the work at today's prices. ACV is actual cash value, that same number minus depreciation. If your estimate only lists one of the two, ask which one it is and how the other was calculated, since the gap between them is often the money held back until repairs are finished.
A few line items are easy to misread because they sound like they cover more than they do. 'Detach and reset' means removing something and putting it back, like a light fixture during drywall work, not replacing it. 'Remove and replace' means actual replacement. Mixing those up makes an estimate look either padded or short when it's neither. If a term on your copy doesn't match what you think it means, ask the adjuster to define it against your specific repair, not in general.
Before you accept a number
Get the full Xactimate printout, not just the total, and check it line by line against what your contractor says the job needs. Missing scope is the easiest thing to fix if you catch it now.
