I’ve adjusted property claims for a national carrier, written thousands of Xactimate estimates as a contractor in a carrier network, and owned a mitigation company before either of those. The through-line is the estimate: building it, defending it, and taking it.

That range is the reason this practice exists. Most people reviewing a property claim have only ever seen it from one direction. If you’ve only written for contractors, you don’t know which arguments a desk adjuster has heard a hundred times and already has an answer for. If you’ve only adjusted, you don’t know what it costs to actually perform the repair you just priced. Knowing both is what separates a finding that moves a file from one that generates another letter.

I also studied lean manufacturing during my degree and trained in it at Boeing, which turns out to be unexpectedly relevant. A claim file is a process with defects in it, and the defects repeat. Reviewing enough of them teaches you where to look first.