WGAN-TV Matterport Service Providers: Understanding Matterport and Xactimate for Insurance Adjusting with Omaha, Nebraska-based Property Damage Estimating Services Owner Jacek Kazimierz Latarewicz (@Jacek)

Matterport digital twin of a house file. Matterport tour courtesy of Pearland, TX-based A Public Adjuster Group LLC (Randell Smith)


Matterport TruePlan Xactimate Sketch courtesy of Omaha, Nebraska-based Property Damage Estimating Services Owner @Jacek Kazimierz Latarewicz


Property Damages Estimating Services | Contact Us

WGAN-TV MSPs: Understanding Matterport & Xactimate for Insurance Adjusting

Hi All,

Transcript below ...

How does a public insurance adjuster and restoration contractor use Xactimate and Matterport to help clients receive an accurate estimate on their insurance claim?

Why does this matter to Matterport Service Providers? (1. accurate measurements; 2. eliminates sketching a space by hand; 3. eliminates photos; 4. saves money/time related to travel)

Now that Matterport offers its TruePlan Service to create Xactimate models (TruePlan public beta), Matterport Service Providers have a powerful tool to offer for insurance claims of properties that have experienced fire and flood damage.

Find out much more on WGAN-TV Live at 5 that aired Thursday, 28 January 2021. My guest was: Omaha, Nebraska-based Property Damage Estimating Services Owner Jacek Kazimierz Latarewicz (@Jacek):

✓ WGAN-TV | MSPs: Understanding Matterport & Xactimate for Insurance Adjusting

Learn the lingo and value propositions from an experienced Xactimate insurance estimator so that you can develop new business with:

1. Public Insurance Adjusters (PAs)
2. Renovation and Remediation companies
3. Insurance companies
4. Law Firms (litigation of property damage)
5. Claim consultants for insurance companies ($1+ million claims)
6. Other companies that find the Matterport TruePlan Xactimate helpful

Jacek walks us through an Xactimate plan and a Matterport digital twin of a house fire to show how the Xactimate and Matterport tour are used for insurance claims (and why these tools are much better than just photos for documenting claims).

Jacek has 20+ years of experience using Xactimate to help policy holders get the most money back on an insurance claim by having an accurate estimate. @Jacek previously worked as a Senior Xactimate Estimator estimating insurance claims.

I met Jacek in 2016 in Atlanta when he helped my wife and I with insurance adjusting for water damage in our home (when we were not getting as much money as we thought we should have from the insurance company).

What questions do you have about marketing your services for Matterport and Xactimate for insurance adjusting?

Best,

Dan

WGAN Forum Related Discussion

✓ Transcript: Matterport Webinar: Matterport TruePlan™ (Xactimate)
✓ Transcript: Matterport Insurance Claims: Flood/Fire Remediation/Restoration
✓ Transcript: WGAN-TV | How to (Easily) Add Lights to Matterport Pro2 Camera
✓ Transcript: WGAN-TV: Matterport Meets Insurance Underwriting and Risk Mgmt

WGAN Forum Discussions Tagged

✓ TruePlan
✓ Xactimate
✓ Insurance
✓ Insurance Adjusters
✓ Insurance Claims Settlement
✓ Flood
✓ Fire
✓ Remediation
✓ Renovation

Transcript (Video Above)

- Hi, all, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum.

Today is Thursday, January 28, 2021. And you're watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.

We have an awesome show for Matterport Service Providers today: Understanding Matterport and Xactimate for Insurance Adjusting.

And my guest today is Jacek Latarewicz. Hey, Jacek, good to see you!

- Good to see you, Dan.

- Thanks for being on the show. Jacek is an Omaha, Nebraska-based Property Damage Estimating Services Owner.

And, I've known Jacek, gee, going back to 2016 in Atlanta, when he helped my wife and I with insurance adjusting for water damage in our home when we were not getting as much money as we thought we should from the insurance company.

So Jacek has 20 plus years of experience using Xactimate to help policy holders get the most money back on an insurance claim by simply having an accurate estimate.

And previously, Jacek was a Senior Xactimate Estimator; estimating insurance claims. So, got our awesome subject matter expert on the show. I'm super-excited to have you on the show, Jacek.

I think one of the key questions that by the end of the show I'd like to accomplish with you is how does a public insurance adjuster and restoration contractor use Xactimate and Matterport to help clients receive an accurate estimate on their insurance claim?

And why does this matter to Matterport Service Providers? And I think probably the best way to begin the topic is you actually have a house you're going to use as an example.

It's had fire damage. Maybe the first thing, Jacek, is show us the documentation that typically took place before Matterport was around.

Could you go ahead and share your screen and take us through that house?

- Sure, and thank you. Can you share my screen, Dan, please?

- The button at the bottom, share screen.

- I can't open it.

- Maybe just resize your window?

- There we go. Okay, share screen. There we go.

- Awesome! So we can see your screen now. And then maybe, again, if you would, Jacek, take us through the process of documentation for a fire damaged claim, of how it used to be before Matterport.

- Okay, so typically on an insurance claim, you'll get ... take pictures. And we're just going to run through some pictures as an example so you can see the difference.

So typically, this is what you would gather. Now, the problem with taking pictures is that they're specific to an area. And you can't always see everything that you need; the information.

So this is the fire example.

- What strikes me looking at these pictures is you can't tell the relationship between one photo and the next photo or one space and the next space

- Right, it's... That's correct, Dan, it's basically like putting a puzzle together. So you take all the pictures; then you go back to the office; and then you try to put it together.

And if you don't have a lot of experience, you're not sure what's connected to the next. And it's very difficult to do it this way. Because it's just specific to a specific section, and how do you know what you need to do? It's just, it's difficult.

Like zoom in photos-

- So that's great, that's we get ... ... we can see a lot of pictures, and while you might know how to put all those pieces together to form a picture, I think for a lot of us, it's like, "Oh my gosh!

That is such a crazy process for documenting something! And certainly, as Matterport Service Providers, in fact, let's take us into the tour.

So you have ... this is an example that's posted on the We Get Around Network Forum, WGANForum.com. And so we're now looking at a Matterport digital twin of the same space of those 2D pictures.

- That's correct. So now let's jump into a room. And look at the difference. It's amazing!

You can basically move around this space; look at everything that you need. You can pull out a tape measure if you like.

Take a measurement. Oops. Now you have a measurement. So usually, when you scope a loss, Dan, would you like me to start scoping, going through the rooms and taking-

- Yes. Let's have you look at the dollhouse just to get an overview of the house, and then maybe we could fly into where the fire damage in this house actually took place.

- Okay. Okay, so this is a kitchen fire. Oops. This is the fire. And as you can see, for an estimator, now you're able to look at everything in a space.

- So I would say, Jacek, when I look at this picture of fire damage of this kitchen, I go, "Where do you possibly begin to understand how much it's going to cost for not just the remediation, but the renovation to bring this space back to what it was?" So maybe if you could start with the ceiling and just, when you see this picture, what do you see as an insurance adjuster, doing insurance adjusting?

- Okay, so the first thing I do when I walk into any projects, any claim, I start with the ceiling first, I go to the walls. Then I go to the floor. And you basically look at the ceiling and you start taking notes. What value-

- So let's stick with the ceiling for a moment, Jacek. What is it that you're looking at? What, in your mind, what is it you're starting to write down in an, for an Xactimate plan?

And we'll talk about, we'll show and tell on the Xactimate. But, let's start with ... you're looking at the ceiling. What are all the different things that a general contractor can get reimbursed for that you need to document?

- Okay, I need to document; so let's start with the ceiling of what I would be looking at. I'm looking at the light fixtures.

So I'm writing down, there's a light fixture here or light, two light fixtures. I'm writing that there's a vent. I'm writing that. I'm looking at what kind of roofing system it is.

I'm writing down the joists for drywall. Everything that you would see on the ceiling, Because a picture will only give you part of a ceiling. Now, what if you didn't take a picture of this section right here?

Now you just missed a light fixture. Or if you didn't take one of the vents, you missed a vent. So there's two items that you already missed.

So I basically write down everything that I see on the ceiling that needs to go back on there. So you have a register vent, you have a light, you have two light fixtures, what else do we see on the ceiling?

And that's pretty much it on the ceiling, so then I'm writing that down. So I'm writing down a register vent, two light fixtures, 5/8ths drywall. Then I'm moving to the wall. If I'm on the walls, I'm looking at the cabinets.

Okay, what kind of cabinets are there? Are they 30 inch cabinets? 36 inch cabinets? 42 inch cabinets?

Are they high and low cabinets?
Is there a valance over the window?
Is there a blind over the window?

What kind of countertop do you have?
Is that a post form countertop?
Is the sink a double bowl sink or a single bowl sink?
What's, is there, inside the sink?
Is there garbage disposal, is there a water purification system?
Does it have a dishwasher?

So normally, if I didn't have this, I know that the dishwasher opening is 24 inches, just from experience.

So, but that's basically the information you have. Then I'm looking at the walls, what do I have?
I have outlets. How many outlets do I have? How many do I need to remove and replace?

How many feet of cabinets do I have? If I don't have a measurement for it, I miss the measurement, now I'm able to pull a tape measure and measure the countertop.

Let's look at this wall. How much drywall do I need to replace?

- You know what I think is interesting here, Jacek, because you're talking about pulling out the tape measure. I know that this Matterport tour is courtesy of a Pearland, Texas-based A Public Adjuster Group LLC, Randell Smith.

And interestingly, you're in Omaha, Nebraska. He's in Pearland, Texas. And you have everything you need with this Matterport tour to do your Xactimate adjusting.

- Exactly, that's what's amazing. I mean, if you think about it, normally for me to fly from Omaha to Texas would cost money.

I would have to stay in a hotel; go to the job site. Scope it. Take notes. Take pictures. Go back to the hotel room or fly back home.

Then gather all that information again. And we do it. With this, I can do it from home, office, anywhere, and walk through the space.

That's what's absolutely amazing to me about this technology is that you can do everything from home, let's say I have a cabinet that I don't understand or if someone doesn't understand something.

Now you can share that with someone. You can send it. You can call a cabinet shop and say, "hey, I have a cabinet. I'm not sure what this is, can you tell me?"

Email it to them, now they'll be able to tell you what you have. You basically take the expert out of the person, and now you can share it with someone who actually knows and understands it.

- Let's keep looking at this space. Because I know you've actually ... I was lucky enough to read ahead on some of what you were looking at knowing that there's 60 different plus things that you were able to identify in 10 plus categories.

And I think it's super-helpful for a Matterport Service Provider to really understand the huge value that a Matterport tour has to different audiences, such as a public adjuster; an insurance adjuster; a remediation company.

So let's take a look at the ... was there anything else on the walls? Or, let's take a look at the floor.

- Yes. Let me cover cabinets, because cabinets are very, very important. There are so many pieces and parts to cabinets that I see that are missed every day on estimates.

Because it's ... that's the biggest thing, is to be able to see the space, the size of the cabinets.

Do you have any scribe molding?
Do you have any? What kind of toe kick does it have?

What kind of countertop it has? What size cabinet is it?

It's just amazing! I'm sorry. I just think it's exciting.

Okay, now on the floor. When we're looking at the floor, we need to know, is the floor on concrete, is it on a slab? What's underneath the floor?

What kind of base is it?
What if you don't write down the size of the base?
Is it two and a quarters? A three inch? Is it a four inch base?

Now you're able to see it and walk through. So that's basically, then you have a pantry.

What's the ... what if you had to measure the size of the shelving in the pantry?

Now you can measure it. How many are there? There's one, two, three, four, so I know there's four shelves in here.

If you took a picture of only the bottom two sections, now you just missed two shelves that are above it. Or if you didn't take the notes.

It's, that's ... what's cool about using Matterport, is now I can see everything in the space., It's like I'm there and...

- What about doors and windows?

- Okay, doors and windows, same thing.

- So we're in the kitchen. I think there's a window, boom. When you look at that window above the sink, I see a window, what do you see?

- I see a window, but what type of window is it? Is it a horizontal slider? Is it a single hang? A double hung? How is it installed? Do I need to take the siding?

Does it ... If it needs to be replaced, do I need to take the siding off on the outside?

Does it have a flange on it?
Is there a blind? Is there a curtain on it?

These are all line items.

How's the window finished?
Is it drywall wrapped?
Is it a cased opening?
Does it have a window sill?

And now I can look at the window and know everything I need.

So I know it's a drywall wrapped window. I see that there was a blind here.

And if you took a picture; if you had a picture of it and you only took a section of it, you're not going to see the rest of it. Same thing with the doors.

What kind of door is it? Is it a two-four? a two-six? A two-eight door?

What's the swing on that door? Is it a left swing? A right swing? Is the door a hollow core?

A solid core? Is it a six-panel door? There's just a lot of detail that you need to know when you estimate so you do it accurately.

Because there's a lot of choices that you can pick. Same with cabinets; the drawers; some drawers ... you have drawers that are dovetail; that are dovetailed drawers.

You have ... There's different ways of ... grades of cabinets. And, different parts and accessories that you have. And a picture just does not tell you that.

- Yes. I'm going to pause you there. This is so fascinating, but what I really want to say to our Matterport Service Providers that are looking at this picture, every time Jacek says something, that's money that the homeowner can get reimbursed for; to apply to having this space renovated, remediated, brought back to what it was prior to the fire.

So every time Jacek sees something and he's able to note that about this space ... is money! Money! Money! And that's why this documentation is so helpful, because he has the ability to walk around the space and be able to see things he might not have seen if he was just sent a stack of pictures. Jacek, how about appliances and plumbing? Looking at this kitchen first.

- Okay, so let's take, for example, the kitchen sink, okay. Underneath, if you do not ... you have angle stops. You cannot remove cabinets unless you take the angle stops off for the plumbing.

You have a hot and cold water line. So, you have angle stops; which are shadow valves. Does it ... What if there's a disposal underneath there? You just missed the disposal.

What if there's a water purification system underneath there? You just missed it. So there's two items and these items cost money. I mean, that's, I mean, you can easily lose thousands of dollars in the kitchen.

- Excuse me, can you walk closer to the sink and tell us whether it has a disposal?

- I can't because I can't open it, I can't see inside.

- Okay.

- And that's one thing that I would recommend ... for Matterport, if you could, open the door of a sink, the kitchen sink base cabinet. And have the door open. Because it is important for estimators to know what's inside, underneath the sink.

- See, it seems like a great tip, and if we were shooting this house for, to sell the house, we'd keep all the cabinets closed.

But for your purposes, actually opening closet doors and cabinets and under the sink is actually way helpful.

Maybe even to drop the camera down to eye level so that you can have a good eye shot of what's underneath that sink.

Because everything that you're able to identify, again, is money for the homeowner to get reimbursed on.

- So think about it, normally on a normal claim, if someone didn't take accurate measures of the kitchen, what do I have to do? I know a sink base is 36 inches or 30 in a kitchen.

It's a double bowl sink. So, I would take the dishwasher ... because I know that's a 24 inch opening.

The depth of a cabinet is two feet. So it's from experience that I basically have to put together a puzzle. Now, this Matterport eliminates that. Now I can concentrate more on the details, what's missing?

What needs to be replaced, does it have pull handles on the cabinets? What kind of sink is it? Because not everyone who goes to a claim understands everything at a deep level, they might know some things about it.

But I look at it from the inside out. From the back. From the front. What's attached to it? What's behind it? What's underneath it? What's above it? And this helps a lot.

- What about in terms of the ... it looks like there's some molding from the floor meets the wall.

- Yeah, oh, yes, okay, so you have a baseboard. Then you have shoe molding on here.

Now, normally, if I didn't have a picture of the trim or if you forgot to take one, if I see that there's a floor, I know that there's shoe or a quarter round covering it just from experience; because you have to have an expansion at the wall, so I would know to put that in.

But not everyone would know that. So now you just missed. Let's say for example, 30 feet of shoe molding because you didn't have the accurate picture or data for this. Data is everything for estimating. Drawers.

- So this house; is the claim limited to the kitchen?

- No. Since this is a fire, it affected the whole structure. So you got to look into every room: because there's going to be cleaning involved. There's going to be painting involved.

And when you scope an estimate, you need to know how many vents you have?

What kind of light does it have? Do you have to remove a light? Does it have a blind? Does it have a curtain? Does it have a door? What kind of door is it? Do you have to protect anything, cover anything?

If you're replacing windows, doors, what kind of door is it? If you're replacing a door on an exterior, let's say, for example, the exterior door of this house, and it's a two by six framed wall and not a two by four framed wall, that exterior door now is ... you got to get a jamb that's two by six wall.

So now you need a jamb extension. With this, I can measure the opening and know if the exterior was two by four; two by six; just by measuring the jamb of the door. Or the window opening, I can measure this side right here.

The distance right here, and then I'll know it's a two by four framed wall. So it just gives you a lot of details that you might not even think about or know, but for someone who estimates, you can now share it or ask someone and check it, because not everyone who will go into this kitchen will look at it from the same point of view like I'm looking at it. I'm looking at a lot of things that people will not think about.

- Can you walk us through just some of the other rooms and say that fire looks like it's been limited to the kitchen, but why the other rooms? What in the other rooms that you're able to get the homeowner money for and why?

- Okay, so let's say we're obviously going to have to paint this room, right? So let's say we have a picture of this area right here. And you have a picture of the ceiling.

- Excuse me, Jacek, I don't see any fire damage in here.

- Right, but there's odor and then there's smoke. You still have to pay here.

- Ah, so does this, does the odor and smoke affect the entire house?

- Yes, sir.

- Ah, so-

- It depends on the severity of the fire, right? So basically, in this house, every room is going to have to be cleaned, sealed, and painted. That's just a standard practice for fires.

- So this is awesome! I mean, I think that's totally helpful for a Matterport Service Provider. So you might think that, oh, well, the fire is just, the damage is just limited to the kitchen for this fire. But in fact, the smoke and the odor means the entire house needs to be documented, because you're going to, at the very least, paint all the walls.

- Yes, sir. So let's take, for example, the living room, okay. I'm looking at the living room. And let's say we're painting this room.

Let's start with the ceiling first. You always do ceiling, walls, floor when you go in a space, even with Matterport, you start at the ceiling, do the walls, and then do the floor.

So I'm looking at the ceiling first. What do I see? I see there's a smoke detector and I see there's a vent, right? So how does that ... Now I know I need to add a smoke detector and a vent. If I did not have a picture of this specific area right here, what did I just miss on estimate?

I missed the smoke detector. Now, when I'm looking at the vent, you see that there's just an opening. I see, I'm thinking, okay, what kind of duct is behind there? Is it a flex duct? A hard duct? Is it going to have duct cleaning? If it has duct cleaning, that brush spins. That means that has to be replaced now. So there's just ... I'm looking at it way deeper.

- Excuse me. Replace because there's smoke damage to it?

- No, I'm saying, if this space, if we're painting it or if there's smoke damage in a room, you have to clean the duct system in this house. Because obviously, everything got sucked through the entire house.

- Okay. And-

- So you got to understand fires. There are different types. And it depends on the severity. What kind of fire is it? Is it a grease fire?

- Can you see smoke damage in this room?

- Yes. I mean, look at the door. Look right here. So let's, so on the ceiling, I'm writing down vent. I'm writing down smoke detector. Then, you got to think about what's behind the register? The duct? Look at the window, what kind of window is it? A single hung? Double hung? A slider? Okay, I see that it's a double hung. That's a single hung window. It's an aluminum window, okay.

- Does that window need to be replaced?

- I don't know if it needs to be replaced. But, so let's say you did have to replace this window. Knowing what type it is is very important, because you don't know what the outside is then. Is there trim on the outside, now if I replace it, does it have a flange?

This is aluminum, so I know it won't have a flange. But if it had a flange, now you got to think about the exterior, what you need to do there. So what are ... what would be some of the common things that you would miss on it? You would miss the blind if it had one. Can you see that right here?

- Yes.

- You have something hanging here. Now, what if you had mullions on the window, which are the dividers that you would normally see, right? Look at the door. The door.

Does it have just a lock or does it have a lock and a deadbolt? Okay, this door is a right swing door. Now you know the swing of the door.

Now I know that the exterior wall is a two by four wall by looking from here to here, I know that it's two by four. Now, what if this was two by six and you were replacing the door? Now you just missed the jamb extension if you had to replace the door.

There's just a lot of information and data that an estimator gets from this. You have shoe molding, baseboard. How many outlets do you have? No one ever takes a picture of a whole wall completely. When you take ... usually when I take pictures of a wall, I treat it like it's a family picture, you want to get everyone in a group.

So you want to take a picture of the entire wall from corner to corner. So look, you have one outlet here. You have a light switch on this wall. Three. Four.

And now you have, oh, there's one right here, right, five. I know that outlets are every 12 feet, so even if someone missed it, I would take the room size and just count every 12 feet, and I can estimate how many there are. Just, but that's from experience.

Not everyone's going to know that. So now you just missed six outlets.

- What about that carpet? Is the smoke going to cause that carpet that needs to be replaced?

- Yes, sir. So let's go into this room now, as an example. Carpet, does the carpet have a reducer strip? What kind of carpet is it? Is it Berber? Is it a loop pile? Now you can see everything. What's in the area, do you have contents that you need to move out?

Let's say you have furniture in this house.

So contents, Is it a small amount of contents or is it a large amount of contents? If you have a picture, it's of this area, now you can walk through the space. So same thing in this room.

Let's take, for example, let's go to the ceiling, because in this room, you're going to paint the ceiling. You're going to paint the walls. You're going to paint the floor. And you have cleaning to do, right?

Look, you have two vents. What else do you have on the ceiling in this room? You have a ceiling fan. Okay, does the ceiling fan have a light kit? Is that a 52 inch blade fan? Is it a 42 inch fan? What kind of fan is it? Does it have an extension rod right here?

That's ... those are all items that you have to enter in your estimating software. So you miss this, you miss an outlet. You miss a register. You miss some outlets. You're basically just doing an inappropriate estimate that is not correct and accurate.

And having this is amazing, because you can just walk around and look at everything.

What kind of texture is it? If there's a drywall repair on this texture? Do I need to skim it? Do I need to re-texture it? Do I need to add in for extra height? Is that a real high ceiling?

Is it something complicated? Does it have a soffit? For example, in the kitchen, you had a soffit. In the kitchen, if that soffit was being replaced, you have to enter that in as an extra item.

But not everyone understands all the items in Xactimate. So in this room, let's start with the ceiling. So like we said, we have two vents. We have a ceiling fan with a rod, right?

Oops. Let me zoom back real quick so that way, everyone can see. You see this extension rod. And a ceiling fan. Two vents, what else, that's pretty much on the ceiling.

Now, this is a detailed ceiling. If you had drywall up on the ceiling, you would have to add an extra for that.

Now let's look at the walls. I take one wall at a time. What do we see?

One, two, three; three outlets on this wall. We have a mini-blind.

What else? Is there a rod there?

Yeah. Looks like something, you had a rod here, right?

So now ... you're not going to miss the blind.

What if you don't know the size of the blind? Now you can measure it.

Because it varies, it goes from zero to 14. 14 to 24. There's different sizes.

Is it one inch flat? Is it a one inch spacing too? How's the window finished? Is it drywall wrapped? Yes, so this window, oops.

This window is drywall wrapped; meaning the drywall is returned to the inside.

So you have a corner bead all the way around the window. Now, it could have, it could be, if this was a wood window, you would have wood here. A windowsill, this doesn't have a window, like the other ones.

So there's just a lot of details that you need to know and that's someone who comes out here and takes a picture or collects data.

I mean, if you're an adjuster or a contractor and you've only been doing it five years, someone who's been doing something longer than you, they're going to look at it from a different point of view and that person is going to look at it from a different, they might not think about all the things that I'm looking at. Okay, now look at this right here.

There's something I see. You see right here that there's trim? That's not, that's something a lot of people would ... you would miss. And I mean, you just missed them money.

- Money, you keep finding money.

- Yes. Yes. It's just about writing an accurate estimate; looking at every wall and writing down everything. Outlets, I mean, if we did not write down everything and be able to go through the space and look at everything, then you're just leaving out things that need to be done that should be done. There's two outlets on this wall.

- Jacek, you had shown us the 2D pictures at the top of the show, which included the attic. Did this Matterport tour include the attic?

- I don't think so. I don't, no, I don't think I had an attic on this-

- So if there ... was fire damage here, I would imagine getting the Matterport in the attic would have been helpful too?

- Yes. Yes. Yes. It would be. Because it would help us know what kind of ducts it has in there. Because if this house is in the South you have a lot of furnaces there in attics. And also you have flex duct and you have regular duct and, because then you can measure the feet of it.

But that's something normally that you would call an HVAC contractor to do. And then you need to see what kind of insulation it has too because there's ... Is it blown in insulation? Is it bad insulation?

- Oh, I mentioned that. So for a Matterport Service Provider that's going to do a Matterport digital twin for a fire, for example, even if you're not asked to do the attic, you want to do the attic, because the adjuster, like Jacek, is going to tease out a lot of information by being able to walk around the attic.

- Yes. Yes, so yeah. Not on all claims. It just depends. It's specific to claims. So on this one, it would be nice, because there's just a lot of data that I would see and know.

- Okay. Is there any other part of the house that you wanted to walk around to to show what you would see in the event of fire or flood damage?

- Yeah, so yes. Let's walk down to the hallway real quick, okay. Because there were a lot of things in the hallway that were important that were missed and that you can catch now. Okay, so we're in the hallway.

Same thing again. Ceiling, walls, floor, what do we have here? We have access to the attic; a pull-down ladder, right? So it has trim around it.

Now, if you, now you can measure the trim. And what else do you have, you have a smoke detector. You have a thermostat, you have a... Oh, shoot, let me go to that room. You have a pantry here. You can measure every single shelf if you want.

You know if it's one, two, three, four. You know there's four shelves in it and ... and if you need a measurement of it, you can measure it. You know the swing of the door. So this one's going to be a left swing. Then you have a light fixture. You see the doorbell.

Thermostat. Smoke detector. Doorbell. How many light switches? You have a light switch. You have two and a quarter inch base. You have a return vent here. And obviously inside, here's the furnace. So now I know that there's just a lot of items that you would normally miss. So if you have six pictures of the room-

- Let's do that, Jacek, let's, take us into the Xactimate to talk about what that document is. Because I think what you've done is you ... I think you've done an awesome job showing; looking at what, while you're calling up the Xactimate, I'll talk a little bit. ... So Jacek, if you could call up your Xactimate drawing.

- Okay, the sketch?

- The sketch, that would be great. So I think, for a Matterport Service Provider, I would say what we're learning here is that the Matterport digital twin for, in this example, a house fire, Jacek literally did a sketch that had 60 plus different line items just for the kitchen, just for the kitchen, identifying those 60 plus within 10 plus category.

So Jacek went through the ceiling, the walls, doors, windows, cabinets, appliances, plumbing, baseboard, floor, and then items for odor and cleaning. And there's actually an item for I want to say, two other items, one was profit and one was...

- Overhead and profit?

- Overhead, a line item for overhead and a line item for profit. So every one of these things needs to be identified. And this, what Jacek is going to show us in terms of Xactimate, there are 20,000 plus line items in this Xactimate program.

And when you get an experienced adjuster like Jacek who really can identify, every one of those things he sees, he sees money. And so that means that the Matterport digital twin has huge value to a lot of constituencies, we'll talk more about that.

And then you say, okay, well, Jacek has identified all these things, what does he do with it? And then I think that's probably a good time to talk about what we're looking at now, Jacek.

- Okay, can you see the sketch then?

- Yes.

- Okay. So this is an example of a sketch. With [Matterport] TruePlan now, if you, you can import this right into Xactimate. You do not have to measure any loss, which is amazing. Because not everyone's sketches right? If you knew the struggles of sketching for people.

And so think, if this took you let's say two-three hours, some people might take four hours or some can do it in a half an hour.

Just depends on experience. But we have accurate data. Now you can share this with your carpet installer. You can share it with your painter. You can share with your drywaller. You can share it with your window guy.

Your cabinet guy; everyone. And everyone has the same measurement that's accurate, not different. If you took 100 people into this house, you would get 100 different measurements of everything. And no one would come out with the same measurements for everything.

And everyone wants to measure their own because they don't trust the person who measured before them. And they just ... because you have to be accurate. You got to think, carpet comes in 12 foot rolls.

If a room, if you write down that a room is 11.2 and the carpet installer, the carpet company goes off your measurement and that room is 13 feet, you just, you got to be sure, because you got to have a scene now. So there's a lot of things that affect a lot of trades in a lot of ways.

- Yeah. Jacek, was there anything, I was going to take us off screen share unless there was something else you wanted to show us on this sketch.

- On the sketch?

- Yeah.

- What else would you like me to show? Hold on a second. Okay.

- Yeah, we can stop there, that's fine. So I think...

- I would like to run through the bathroom if we can later.

- Yeah, we can do that. Let's do that in a moment, I, what I want to be able to say is we've looked at the Matterport digital twin. And I think it's helpful as a Matterport Service Provider to understand the people who do remediation.

The people that do the renovation. The general contractor. The insurance adjuster. A public insurance adjuster. If there's litigation, the lawyer that's doing litigation. They're all working off of this Xactimate tool/platform.

And this Xactimate is required by the insurance company in order to get reimbursed; to reimburse the homeowner or reimburse the general contractor for doing the work. And super-exciting news is that Matterport, as of today, Thursday, January 28th, 2021, has just exited the ... its Matterport TruePlan service into public beta.

And that TruePlan service creates a file format called .SKX And that .SKX file can be imported into Xactimate. And so essentially, Matterport is now offering an Xactimate creation service. I'm sure they'll get it down to probably a day.

It's probably about two days right now from the time that the Matterport digital twin is available until you can order the Xactimate. They call it a Matterport TruePlan. But essentially, it's an Xactimate plan. And so that means you could hand the Matterport tour to Jacek.

You can hand the Xactimate first drawn by Matterport. And then that file Jacek can play with and edit and change and then tease out all these different things that you're identifying related to the fire.

- Yes, and then, can I break in for a second? Just so you guys know, if you go to Matterport TruePlan, they do have two samples on the site, I did download them and import them into Xactimate to try it out. And it is in that format that you mentioned.

But it does, I played with it. So they do, if you go to the site, TruePlan, I believe, I don't know if you can share the link to it, but they do have two samples on it-

- Yeah, it's in the We Get Around Network Forum, WGANForum.com ... And if you just look for our discussion that's going on all this week, or you can simply Google Matterport TruePlan Xactimate, and you'll land on the Matterport Support page and be able to download the examples to see. I would say, I don't want to overwhelm a Matterport Service Provider.

I think what's sufficient to know is you have the ability to shoot a digital twin of a residential space or a commercial space that has water damage, fire damage, smoke damage, wind damage, tornado damage; whatever it is.

And then it, and know that if you're talking to a remediation company - the first company that comes in and they go to mitigate the water damage and they bring in dehumidifiers and blowers and all kinds of stuff ... They're doing this Xactimate thing just like everybody else, because they got to get reimbursed for how many blowers and all this stuff that they're doing.

So you don't really need to know about how to create an Xactimate. You just need to be able to say, "Hey, are you using Xactimate in your adjusting?" Yes? "Oh, would it be helpful if we provided to you a Matterport TruePlan file that can be imported into Xactimate?" That's about all you really need to know when you're talking to an insurance adjuster or a remediation company, a general contractor, a law firm that does litigation.

This is really quite amazing, because this, the combination of the Matterport digital twin and the Xactimate means it's probably going to disrupt in a really good way this whole area of doing adjusting. I think it would make your life way easier, Jacek, if people just sent you the Matterport digital twin and sent you the Xactimate, and then you were able to then take it to the next step of identifying all the things that needed to be, that are line items to get reimbursement for from the insurance company.

- Yes.

- Show us the bathroom.

- Okay, let's go to our bathroom. Oops. Shoot, how to make it bigger, Dan?

- So resize your screen so that you can start to share the screen.

- There we go, I got it.

- Okay.

- All right. Yeah, bathrooms. I just want to go through it just so you can see kind of, because there's a lot of detail in it and it's a good example. Okay. All right, so now we're in the bathroom.

- I can't see it yet, so share your screen, please.

- Hold on one second.

- So again, we're visiting with Jacek Latarewicz. Jacek is the owner of Property Damage Estimating Services in Omaha, Nebraska. And I've worked with Jacek in the past where he helped my wife and I with an insurance claim where we felt we weren't getting as much money as we should.

And it's quite amazing all the things that Jacek ... that Jacek can see that other adjusters perhaps don't see because they don't have his level of; years of experience. What did you want to show us in the bathroom?

- Okay, can you see the screen, Dan?

- Yep.

- Okay. Let's start with the ceiling. Okay. Light fixture. Bathroom fan. Bathroom fan. Does it have a heater in it? Does it have a light with it? Let's go in. Shower rod. What kind of tub surround do you have? Is it a one piece fiberglass, does it have tile backsplash? Yes, this one's tiled. There's so many different options. You have a shower head. One top bar. A soap dish. What else do we see here? If you're putting that ... the vanity. Okay, you have a bar light, right? Okay. How many? This is a one, two, three ... This is a five bar light. There's three bar lights. There's seven bar lights. You need to know that. What kind of mirror? ... There we go.

The mirror size. What size is it? Does it have a metal strip on the bottom to install? That's a different line item. You have a GFI outlet. There's a towel bar here you see. Medicine cabinet. Vanity.

What size vanity? 30 inch vanity? 36? What kind of countertop is it? Does it have a backsplash? Toe kick? What kind of floor do you have? Vinyl? If you're putting the toilet, don't forget, you got to take the angle stop off. Base trim: does the base have shoe on it? There's just a lot. And this bathroom is a little different; because look what it has that normally you don't have.

You have half tile and half carpet in the bathroom. So now you have to run your carpet in here and put a reducer strip for the vinyl. Wood floors. So you have reducer strips. Transition strips. There's just a lot of detailed things that you need to know.

So that pretty much covers the bathroom. It just ... There's just a lot of details that normally you would not, oops, that normally you would not-

- Thanks Jacek, that's awesome. I think being able to show us all the things you see, we walk in and we turn on the lights and we see a bathroom.

You see 60 plus items that can all get reimbursement from the insurance company for the homeowner. I guess part of the reason this topic is, has been fascinating to me is that I know when I first visited with Jacek, gee, I think five, six years ago, and he was helping my wife and I with our home, we've now been through three separate water damage experiences in our home.

And it's been fascinating, even though I had a Matterport tour going back to that first water damage, the remediation came in. They did their measuring. The insurance adjuster came in and he did his Xactimate.

And the general contractor came in and he did his Xactimate. And I'm thinking ... WOW! There's been three different Xactimates done at the same property, this seems to be redundant. So I think eventually, what's going to happen is that we're going to see the major insurance companies simply require either a Matterport and the Xactimate or the equivalent.

And I think that'll be super-exciting for Matterport Service Providers, because that will mean that it will increase the demand for photographers like us that do this kind of scanning for insurance documentation.

Jacek, I think there were a couple of things that I wanted to add on this topic. ... I think after maybe watching the show, the temptation might be to say, "Oh. Well. I'll go talk to remediation companies. I'll talk to insurance companies.

I'll talk to law firms. I'll talk to general contractors. And I think it's probably helpful to know that if you're in remediation or renovation related to fire and flood damage, you're probably going to want to have your Matterport camera in-house. It's just the way it's going to be.

And frankly, since this is a 24/7, nights, weekends. holidays kind of scanning, I'm not sure that ... it's a great business for Matterport Service Providers to be on call 24/7. And that you just have to stop what you're doing.

On the other hand, and Jacek, correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is that in this space of insurance adjusting, most of the companies in this ecosystem actually make their most money when there is a weather event.

So you might have in the West Coast fires that are passing through the West Coast. In Florida, you may have flood damage that's coming in or hurricane damage. In the Northeast, you may have snow. And all of a sudden, all the companies in this ecosystem that do insurance adjusting, remediation, renovate the space, they're totally overwhelmed.

And that, I think, is the opportunity ... is to say, "Hey! Just want to let you know, I'm a Matterport Service Provider. When you get overwhelmed because of a weather event, hurricane, fire, flood, snow or similar, hey, I'm here.

I can be doing a lot of the documentation for you. And oh, by the way, provide you with an Xactimate within 48 hours of being done with the tour." So I suspect that that's a huge win for the remediation, renovation ecosystem, because they can't possibly handle all the documentation when there's a major weather event. Does that sound ... right?

- Yes, yes, sir. Just keep in mind, folks. Imagine you're living in Florida and there's a hurricane coming.

You can get a Matterport scan done of your property, now you have all your contents documented, you have the measurements and everything done.

You could basically write something, have all the material, all the data you need and have a truck ready with everything to rebuild it. But then if you sell your house, you can pass on that Matterport to the next homeowner.

It's ... If you knew the contents, 'cause if you have a fire or any kind of loss, do you know that you have to document every single item in your house? How many lamps do you have, how many TVs? What remote, what tables? Everything, you're not going to remember any of that. Especially for-

- Well, I think that the good news for us Matterport Service Providers, probably the very first tour that we all did was our own home or apartment. But I think you are identifying a whole another use case, Jacek.

So if you live in a weather event prone area like Florida, like Texas, like California, if you can identify, you may have a whole another business opportunity for wealthy homeowners that want their home documented to the nth degree in the event of a fire or flood damage.

And for those that are on the new Matterport Service Provider pricing where you only get charged based on the number of models that are public, you can be shooting for a homeowner and then have that model not public, not in use, and is only available on demand in the event that there's an insurance claim.

So I think that's a whole another use case that you've identified, Jacek.

- Yes. And keep in mind also, in fires, you will have someone come in and their job will be to either, with the recorder, record every item that you have in your items for contents, let's say.

Now they can do it remotely and just go through a video and write down everything, because you have to list all the contents out. And this is so helpful for that. I mean, think, you miss 10 things in every room. And let's say it's $1,000 and you have seven rooms, you just missed $7,000 worth of items.

And with this, you can look at every single item remotely. It's just great for documentation. Data and information is key for estimating an insurance. You got to have the data. Five pictures is not enough then to walk through a space and look at everything like you're there.

It's like teleporting. ... When I look at this claim, I'm so happy that I don't have to fly to Texas and stay in a hotel, be away from my family. I can do this from my living room, from my office, whatever. And you can take your time in every single room.

Look at the ceiling, the walls, the floor, write everything down, move slowly or as fast as you want. And you can always go back and look at it. It's just awesome documentation.

It's, I just wish this was around 20 years ago. When I started, we took Polaroids of claims.

- We've come a long way. Is there anything that we haven't covered that we should've covered?

- No, Dan. I mean, we can go through the garage if you want. It's up to you.

- Well, I think we'll call it a day there. Jacek, thanks so much for being on the show today.

- Thank you very much for having me, Dan, and thank you all for joining.

- Awesome, we've been visiting with Jacek Latarew-

- Latarewicz.

- Latarewicz. And Jacek is Omaha, Nebraska-based owner of Property Damage Estimating Services.

His website is: propertydamageestimatingservices.com Jacek is also a member of the We Get Around Network Forum, so if you got any questions, it's @Jacek ... @Jacek is his WGAN Forum Member name. For Jacek in Omaha, Nebraska.

I'm Dan Smigrod in Atlanta, and you've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.