Claim documentation and Xactimate estimating in Colorado Springs.
A roof claim is decided on a document. Not on how bad the damage looked, not on how convincing anybody was on the phone — on a line-item estimate that either includes what your roof needs or does not. This page is about that document: what is in it, how to read the one your carrier sent you, and what happens when the roof turns out to need more than it says.
What Xactimate is, and why it keeps coming up.
Xactimate is estimating software. It is what most property carriers and most independent adjusters use to price a loss, and it works from regional price lists that are updated periodically. So the labor and material rates applied to your roof reflect a published rate for this area rather than one contractor's opinion of what the work is worth.
That is the entire reason we write scopes in it. It does not make our estimate binding on your carrier and it does not guarantee agreement. What it does is remove one whole category of dispute. When two documents are built from the same price list in the same format, a disagreement becomes specific — this line is missing, this quantity is wrong — rather than two parties talking past each other with incompatible paperwork.
It also means you can audit us. An itemized scope shows you what you are buying, where the optional upgrades are, and which items are being claimed against insurance versus paid out of pocket. A single lump-sum number tells you nothing and can be adjusted quietly.
The lines worth checking on the estimate you were sent.
Carrier estimates are itemized, which means an omission is findable if you know what should be there. These are the ones that go missing most often on a Colorado Springs roof.
Measured quantity and waste
Squares of roof, not square footage of house. Check the pitch and the number of squares against the roof you own. Waste allowance is a real line — cut-up roofs with hips, valleys and dormers generate more offcut than a simple gable, and a flat waste figure applied to a complex roof underpays it.
Steep and two-story charges
Separate line items for pitch above a threshold and for height. They exist because both genuinely change the labor and the staging. On a two-story Colorado Springs home with a 7 or 8 in 12 pitch, their absence is one of the most common single reasons an estimate comes in low.
Underlayment and ice barrier
What goes under the shingles is priced separately from the shingles. Ice and water barrier at the eaves and in the valleys is a code-driven item in a freeze-thaw climate, and it is not automatically carried across from an older roof that predates the requirement.
Ridge, starter, drip edge and flashing
The accessories. Individually small, collectively substantial, and routinely omitted or under-counted. Drip edge and starter course in particular are frequently missing from an initial scope on an older roof that did not have them.
Ventilation
Ridge vent, box vents, turbines, and the intake at the soffit. A replacement that reinstates a ventilation arrangement that was already inadequate is a warranty problem waiting to happen, and the fix has to be in the scope to be paid for.
Decking and layer count
Almost never accurate before tear-off, because nobody can see the deck. Expect it as a unit-rate line and expect it to change. A second layer of shingles that nobody knew about changes both the tear-off and the disposal lines materially.
We scope the roof before we read your estimate.
This is a small procedural point with a large effect. If a contractor sees the carrier estimate first, everything they subsequently write is anchored to it — consciously or not. Scope the roof first, in its own right, and the two documents become genuinely independent. Where they differ, the difference means something.
So the sequence is: inspect and measure, write the scope, then compare. If the carrier scope covers everything, we say so — that happens, and it is a short conversation. If items are missing, you get a specific list of what and why, in the format your adjuster already works in.
Photographs tied to location
Impacts marked and shot with a scale reference, organized by slope and orientation. An unlabeled folder of roof photographs proves very little. The same photographs indexed to slopes prove a storm direction.
Test square densities
Counted impacts within a marked area on each slope. This is the measurement that separates a damaged slope from an undamaged one, and it is what an adjuster is looking for when they get on the roof themselves.
Line-item scope in Xactimate
Written against the regional price list, itemized, and issued to you rather than just to your carrier. You should hold the document that describes work you are paying a deductible toward.
Code items identified
Requirements that apply to the replacement rather than the original roof. These are frequently the difference between a scope that passes inspection and one that has to be revisited, and they belong in the estimate up front.
Supplements filed as found
Decking, hidden layers and concealed damage get photographed at the moment of discovery, with the roof open, and filed then. Documentation reconstructed after the fact is worth far less and looks worse.
Final invoice matched to scope
The completed invoice has to reconcile against the approved scope for withheld depreciation to be released. That is administrative, and it is where money most often goes missing at the end of a claim.
What this does not do: Writing a scope in Xactimate does not oblige your carrier to accept it, and any contractor implying otherwise is overselling the software. It makes a disagreement specific and reviewable. That is worth a great deal, and it is not the same as a guarantee.
What happens when the roof comes off.
Every estimate written before tear-off contains a guess about the deck. Nobody can see through shingles. On older Colorado Springs homes the two things that show up most often are decking that has softened around a long-standing leak, and a second layer of shingles that changes the tear-off and disposal quantities.
A supplement is how that gets paid for. It is a normal, expected part of a claim rather than a sign something has gone wrong. What matters is timing: the evidence exists for a few hours while the roof is open, and a supplement filed with photographs taken in that window is straightforward. One raised afterwards, from memory, is not.
This is also the honest argument for a unit-rate line rather than a lump sum on decking. You are billed for the sheets actually replaced, verifiable against photographs, rather than an allowance that quietly gets consumed whether the work happened or not. The wider claim sequence, from first notice to final payment, is on our insurance claims page.
Where our role ends.
We document, we scope, and we show up to the adjuster meeting. We do not interpret your policy or argue coverage on your behalf. That is public adjuster or attorney work, and if your claim needs it we will say so instead of improvising.
We also will not price to your estimate. If the roof needs less than your carrier approved, the scope says less. That is an uncomfortable conversation roughly as often as it is a welcome one, and having it consistently is most of what 15 years of operating in one city buys you. For how settlements are structured, meaning actual cash value, depreciation, deductibles and deadlines, see our claim assistance page.
Send Us Your Estimate
We'll scope the roof first, then read your carrier estimate against it and show you the difference in writing.
Documentation and Estimating Questions
You are not required to. Most carriers and independent adjusters work in it, which is the practical reason a contractor estimate written in the same platform gets compared line against line rather than argued about as a whole. A handwritten estimate on a letterhead is not invalid — it is just harder for an adjuster to reconcile against their own document, and difficulty is not neutral when someone is deciding what to approve.
Yes, once you have decided who you are working with. Without it, a contractor is guessing at what your carrier already agreed to pay for, and the most common problem on a roof claim is not a disputed price — it is a line that is simply missing. There is an obvious counter-argument, which is that a dishonest contractor will price to the estimate rather than to the roof. The protection against that is a contractor who inspected and scoped the roof before seeing the carrier document, which is the order we work in.
Additional documentation filed with your carrier when the work turns up damage or requirements the original scope did not include. On a roof the usual triggers are decking discovered rotten or delaminated at tear-off, an extra layer nobody knew was there, and code-required items the original estimate omitted. Supplements are routine rather than adversarial — many roofs need one — but they have to be documented as they are found, not remembered afterwards.
It is a commercial subscription platform, priced for contractors and adjusters rather than homeowners, and the exact figure depends on the tier and term. This question comes up because homeowners want to check the numbers themselves, which is fair. You do not need the software to do that. You need the estimate itemized, which you can request from your carrier, and someone to walk the line items with you against what is actually on your roof.
A line that accounts for the cost of a contractor coordinating multiple trades on a job, distinct from the labor and materials of the work itself. Whether it is warranted turns on the complexity of the job, and carriers apply it inconsistently. It is one of the more commonly disputed items on a claim, and it is worth understanding what it is before assuming its presence or absence is an error.
No. We document damage, write a scope, meet your adjuster on the roof and explain what we are looking at. We do not negotiate your claim on your behalf or advise you on your policy rights — that is the work of a public adjuster or an attorney, and where you need one we will tell you plainly rather than doing an amateur version of it.
Estimate doesn't look right?
We'll measure the roof, write our own scope, and go through the line items with you.
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