Transcript: How Matterport is Used to Create Xactimate Claim Documentation15738
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| WGAN-TV: MSPs: How a Matterport Tour is Used to Create Xactimate Claim Documentation with Claims Delegates Founder and Licensed Insurance Adjuster and Xactimate Team Leader Andrew McCabe (Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com) | Thursday, 7 October 2021 | Episode 120WGAN Free Service: Text Me 5 Minutes Before WGAN-TV is Live Transcript for WGAN-TV: MSP-How Matterport is Used to Create Xactimate Insurance Claim Documentation Hi All, Transcript below ... If you are a Matterport Service Provider, you may be wondering: 1. How is a Matterport Tour Used to Create Xactimate Insurance Claim Documentation? 2. Is it necessary to use a Matterport TruePlan to create an Xactimate? 3. What is involved in doing a Matterport scan of a fire or flood damaged space? 4. How do you get Matterport scanning business for fire, flood and natural disasters? Get answers to these questions – and more – 5 pm EDT on Thursday, October 7 2021: ✓ WGAN-TV Live at 5: MSPs: How a Matterport Tour is Used to Create Xactimate Claim Documentation My guest will be Bend, OR-based Claims Delegates Founder and Licensed Insurance Adjuster and Xactimate Team Leader Andrew McCabe. Based on my pre-show Zoom chat with Andy, it's obvious that he has a ton of useful info to share with Matterport Service Providers – like you – to help you make more money by helping you understand how Matterport tours are used for insurance documentation by general contractors and insurance companies and how to get business in this vertical. Andy also: ✓ engages Matterport Service Providers for scanning fire, flood and natural disasters ✓ teaches courses in Matterport meets Xactimate ✓ offers Xactimate consulting ✓ creates Xactimates for general contractors ✓ Author: The 24HR Tech: Step-by-Step Manual to Increase Mitigation Profits and Reduce Training Time to Just One Day! (2nd Edition) About Claims Delegates (From the Claims Delegates Website) - Claims Delegates specializes in assisting contractors and property owners manage their own insurance claims. - Our background in the property damage industry uniquely positions us to help those who have suffered a covered property damage loss. We have insider knowledge of the insurance claims process and understand how insurance carriers handle claims. - Our goal is to enable the retention of value and profit by claimants through eliminating waste and unnecessary supervision. - Our perfect customers are: 1. a builder who wants to expand his service offerings by performing insurance repairs, or 2. a professional property management firm with in-house maintenance/repair capabilities that wants to keep their insurance repairs in-house as well. Social Media Links ✓ Andrew G. McCabe LinkedIn profile ✓ Claims Delegates LinkedIn profile ✓ Claims Delegate Website ✓ Claims Delegates Facebook Page ✓ Twitter: @claimsdelegates @andygmccabe ✓ Instagam: @claimsdelegate ✓ Claims Delegates YouTube Channel Transcript (below) [00:00:03] Dan Smigrod: Hey all, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Thursday, October 7, 2021, and you're watching WGAN-TV Live at 5. We have an awesome show for you, Matterport Service Providers: How Matterport is Used to Create Xactimate Insurance Claim Documentation. Here to talk to us about this topic is Andy McCabe. Andy is Founder and Licensed Insurance Adjuster and [00:00:35] Dan Smigrod: Xactimate Team Leader for Claims Delegates in Bend, Oregon. Hey Andy, good to see you. [00:00:44] Andy McCabe: Good to see you man. [00:00:45] Dan Smigrod: Thanks for being on the show. Andy, we got a lot to cover today. By the end of today show, I'd like to feel like we've covered how a Matterport tour is used to create Xactimate insurance claim documentation; if it's necessary to use Matterport TruePlan to create an Xactimate; What's involved in doing Matterport scans of a fire or flood damaged or hurricane damaged space; and how do Matterport Service Providers get business in the space of fire, flood, [00:01:20] Dan Smigrod: natural disasters. Does that sound like we could get that done for MSPs by the end of the show? [00:01:26] Andy McCabe: We will squeeze it in. We'll get a shoe horn if we have to. ;-) [00:01:31] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. Andy before we jump into the topic though, tell me about Claims Delegates. [00:01:38] Andy McCabe: Claims Delegates is an Xactimate estimating and claims consulting firm. I started in 2012 after spending the first part of the 2000s in the restoration industry. I was a water damage technician. I was an estimator project manager for various restoration contractors. I was a general manager for a couple of large regional restoration contractors, and then in 2012, I wanted to branch out on my own. [00:02:09] Andy McCabe: I'm a terrible project manager. I hate dealing with people. I wanted to go just straight to estimating so that's what I did. I started offering estimating services to contractors in my space who didn't necessarily have the in-house expertise that it takes to run the Xactimate program. Xactimate is a beast. It takes years to master it. I just started offering those services and I was off to the races since then. [00:02:36] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. What's your sweet spot in terms of clients? [00:02:41] Andy McCabe: My best clients are contractors, general contractors that are either just getting started in the restoration industry or want to get into the restoration industry. I see Claims Delegates as this gateway drug - as it were - to the restoration industry. We provide the tools that you need to speak, the insurance lingo, mainly Xactimate, but other things as well when it comes to claims handling stuff. [00:03:11] Andy McCabe: Yeah, I want that $1-$5 million contractor that doesn't want to spend $150,000 a year on a project manager estimator and wants to get really top quality estimates - to their adjusters they are servicing - and their clients. [00:03:31] Dan Smigrod: Does that builder need to be in Bend, Oregon? [00:03:36] Andy McCabe: I hope not because that makes it really small market for me. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. We service folks nationwide. It's across the country. I just got back from New Orleans and I was working with a couple of contractors down there. We're going to do a little show and tell here on one of the projects I saw while I was down there, so coast-to-coast. I have spent a lot of time in the Bahamas last year doing Hurricane Dorian stuff. I like to travel, [00:04:06] Andy McCabe: When the proverbial crap hits the fan, I go and that's just the industry we're in. [00:04:15] Dan Smigrod: You mentioned the New Orleans hurricane. Show us and tell us about the Xactimate from New Orleans. [00:04:26] Andy McCabe: Yes. My system is being a remote worker. I need the ability to do as much as I can without being on site. When I go on site, I need to be able to use my time as efficiently as possible. [00:04:43] Dan Smigrod: Can we look at the Xactimate first and then we'll talk about that, because I suspect a lot of our viewers – Matterport Service Providers – they've heard of Xactimate, but they don't know exactly what that is so we have a common language here of what we're talking about. I think that would be helpful. [00:05:05] Andy McCabe: That's the Matterport. You guys know what that looks like. But this is Xactimate. This is the output of all the inputs. This was a combination of a Matterport scan and a Hover report. When you get into Xactimate, this is just the pretty graphical version of it. But the nuts and bolts are very much more complicated. You take this sketch and it breaks it down into these rooms. [00:05:39] Andy McCabe: Then I can start taking these rooms. Let's just use the kitchen, for example. Let's say we're going to paint the kitchen. All I got to do is P and T, seal and paint, walls and ceilings. I don't need to know what that measurement is, but Xactimate knows because we sketched it. Xactimate knows how big that kitchen is. Here we go, there's the kitchen, cabinets and everything. [00:06:12] Andy McCabe: But when I'm in here doing the kitchen, I seal and paint that kitchen, I put in walls and ceilings. Xactimate already knows there's 431 square foot of walls and ceilings. When you go one step further, we're going to mask before we paint. But I want to do the perimeter of that ceiling and the perimeter of the floor. Perimeter of the ceiling is 25 linear feet. I didn't measure that. Matterport measured that and then Xactimate measured that. [00:06:42] Andy McCabe: The main reason I use Matterport is to get these measurements so I don't have to use a tape measure anymore. That's the end result. [00:06:56] Dan Smigrod: Who needs this Xactimate? We have a sense of what it is, visually and measurements and information. But who needs this Xactimate? Why is this extra step even necessary? You shoot a Matterport tour, you can see all the damage. Why do you need to convert Matterport into an Xactimate? [00:07:20] Andy McCabe: In an ideal world, you don't need Xactimate, but insurance companies and in their infinite wisdom – in their never-ending quest to hold onto premium dollars make these requirements. By the end of the day, Xactimate is... It enables people to come with an apples-to- apples comparison and get very granular in the detail. That granularity of detail is what's so important when you're dealing with insurance claims. [00:07:53] Andy McCabe: We need to be able to say, I'm going to take your Xactimate versus my Xactimate and we can see very quickly what the differences are. It's harder to see the differences when a contractor writes an estimate on a napkin and maybe the insurance adjuster writes it in a different platform, making that comparison and trying to say is this a fair loss settlement offer or not? It's very hard when using two different languages. That's where Xactimate came in. [00:08:24] Dan Smigrod: Let me just see if I can put that in context. As a homeowner, my wife and I have had three unrelated floods in our house. I think one of them – been quite some time – it was about $150,000 in damage on three different floors. [00:08:45] Dan Smigrod: The insurance company came out and created this Xactimate. Then the general contractor came out and made another Xactimate. The floor guy, he took a lot of measurements, he didn't create an Xactimate, but he did a lot of measuring. [00:09:03] Andy McCabe: Yeah. A lot of measuring. [00:09:03] Dan Smigrod: What is all this? Measuring an Xactimate. This is so that the general contractor or me as the homeowner, can get reimbursed and made whole for the amount of the loss. [00:09:18] Andy McCabe: Yeah. In an insurance claim situation, it's the easiest way to quantify the loss. It's the easiest way to say this is the amount of my loss and in Xactimate you can change the material pricing, you can change measurements. There's a lot of different methodologies that go into it, but it's all based on the same language. [00:09:50] Andy McCabe: You're speaking the insurance language enables better communication and theoretically better payouts. [00:09:59] Dan Smigrod: We'll assume that there's been some process of remediation. There's blowers that come in to dry stuff. At some point, the insurance company, the general contractor need to agree on how much we're going to reimburse the homeowner, essentially, so that we can pay the general contractor to fix our house. [00:10:26] Andy McCabe: Sure. [00:10:26] Dan Smigrod: This Xactimate is a way to communicate how much paint. How much wood, how much cement. How much labor. How much everything is going to cost. [00:10:42] Andy McCabe: The alternative to that is, well, I call it real bid. A contractor sits down. He runs through what he thinks he's going to spend on labor and materials and what it's going to take. He puts on his markup. The problem with that from the insurance adjusters point of view is it's very opaque. You get a regular contractor to put together that estimate for $150,000 grand for your house. [00:11:15] Andy McCabe: It's going to be 15 line items. It's going to be this much I'm paying this much on flooring. It is going to be 15 to 20 lines plus a markup and he's done while the equivalent Xactimate report is going to have well over a 100 line items, probably closer to 250. [00:11:39] Andy McCabe: I think the prior way is a better way to do it because I think it's just more honest. This is what it's going to cost. There is just a next level of gamesmanship when it comes to Xactimate. That's frankly why I like to be on the cutting edge. I want to win that game. I want to win the Xactimate game. The way to do that is to do things quicker, better, and more efficiently. [00:12:04] Dan Smigrod: We'll assume that if there's fire or flood or a hurricane or wind or some damage, and the owner of that space is going to get reimbursed from insurance. They'll need an Xactimate. Now, we're obviously a community about Matterport. What do you need Matterport for? Why don't you just go out and measure the space with a tape measure or with a laser measure? [00:12:34] Andy McCabe: Well, I'll tell you why because I'm very expensive and I'm not very accurate. I'm not a detailed oriented person. You take somebody like me, right now my rack rate is a $150 an hour. Drive out to a property, spend a couple; three hours scanning it, and drive back. I'm four hours into this thing. [00:13:02] Andy McCabe: That just gets me my scan that doesn't get it into Xactimate. The alternative to using a Matterport scan is handwriting it. Is taking a laser tape out and writing things down and creating a hand-drawn thing. There's other things out there. There's DocuSketch, MagicPlan. There's a lot of players come to the market right now trying to do that function. But I just found Matterport is the most efficient right now. It's the best use of my time and I don't have to do it. [00:13:37] Andy McCabe: I can hire that function out. I can find somebody with the help of your Network as well. Actually, I got a couple of success stories for you on that one. I can be able to virtually everywhere. [00:13:51] Dan Smigrod: How about this, Andy? Let's do this maybe in a linear fashion because you mentioned New Orleans. Could you start with either the phone call or that text or the email that you got that initiated a Matterport scan in New Orleans and take us from that call, email, or text, smoke signal all the way through to that Xactimate that you were showing us? [00:14:16] Andy McCabe: I went down there and I found myself sitting with a public adjuster. Public adjuster is an adjuster that handles insurance claims on behalf of the insured. The opposite side of the table of the carriers, insurance adjuster. And this public adjuster was sharing an office. He was actually borrowing an office from a general contractor. Well, hurricane Ida was a big storm and it affected a big area. Every single contractor in New Orleans and Metairie and all the surrounding areas, they're swamped. They're busy. [00:14:48] Andy McCabe: They can't physically get to every address that they're getting called to. This guy said, ''Hey, do you write Xactimate estimates?'' I said, ''Well, I do that and I do your inspection for you.'' He said, ''How do you do that?'' I said, ''Well, I use this thing called Matterport.'' He never heard of it. I brought my camera down there. This particular scan I'm going to show you, was done with one of these and it wasn't even a Pro2. [00:15:16] Dan Smigrod: That's an Insta360 ONE X2? [00:15:20] Andy McCabe: This is the Insta360 ONE X2. Yep. [00:15:21] Dan Smigrod: Okay. [00:15:22] Andy McCabe: Actually – I take it back, it wasn't this particular one. It was a Theta V that this scan was taken with. [00:15:29] Dan Smigrod: A Ricoh Theta V? [00:15:32] Andy McCabe: Theta V. Yeah. I like the Ricoh Theta Z1 better for all you all who are keeping notes at home. The Ricoh Theta V just doesn't have the clarity. It doesn't have a big enough sensor. The scans don't look as crisp. I just took at the data I need, but I prefer something a little more crisp. This guy said, ''Hey, here's an address, go, no one's there.'' I went and I pulled up to the house and I could show you what we saw. [00:16:03] Andy McCabe: I got to go back to Hover. Oh, I'm not sharing my screen yet. Let me get logged in, then I'll share my screen. [00:16:14] Dan Smigrod: Okay. This is Hover HOVR? [00:16:18] Andy McCabe: HOVER.to [00:16:22] Dan Smigrod: -HOVER.to [00:16:24] Andy McCabe: I think I can click on that and that goes full screen. [00:16:30] Dan Smigrod: Which is super-cool and we write about that in the. We Get Around Network Forum: www.WGANForum.com [00:16:40] Dan Smigrod: Did you create the exterior Hover? [00:16:42] Andy McCabe: I did. [00:16:43] Dan Smigrod: Okay. [00:16:44] Andy McCabe: ... We arrived, got access from a neighbor to get inside. This is pretty typical of what you are going to see in New Orleans everywhere right now, piles of garbage and then blue tarps on roofs. But as we got into this thing. Here's the scan we took when we got there. It was not as bad as we thought. [00:17:17] Andy McCabe: I'll just give you a quick little tour of the house. We're looking around going, ''Man, I don't see a lot of damage until we get to the back of the house.'' Then we started seeing, there's where the water got in, and collapsed in there. We took a couple – I don't even know if he was there for two hours. Probably not two hours. He got through this thing pretty quick. [00:17:47] Andy McCabe: You guys know what a Matterport scan looks like. [00:17:52] Dan Smigrod: Did you take some laser measurements as well just so that you would be able to get a proper scale on this? [00:17:59] Andy McCabe: No. I don't do that. Because frankly, we're playing horseshoes and hand grenades here. We're not doing brain surgery. Getting that level of verifiable accuracy is just not important to what I do. [00:18:21] Dan Smigrod: Okay. [00:18:23] Andy McCabe: It's just, I believe the software. I have faith. I have faith in the software, essentially. Sometimes it's not accurate a 100 percent, but it's accurate enough for me. This was uploaded when he was in a driveway pulling away. It was processed pretty quickly the same day. That same day. Now, I shipped this off to get my sketch done. But I'll show you the process that goes through to get from this to this. [00:19:00] Dan Smigrod: Okay. [00:19:07] Andy McCabe: My measurement is not showing measurements. There we go. But it starts here. I've got a service that does this. Obviously we can measure anything. We can come in here and measure anything we want. [00:19:27] Andy McCabe: You guys have been using this for awhile, you know this. That countertop is 16' 3". We can measure things like ceiling heights and whatnot. But the first thing I like to do is get my floor plan. We can order a floor plan and we could go pay for that. What does that cost? I forget what that cost. [00:19:54] Dan Smigrod: You have two options. The first is to order a Matterport 2D schematic floor plan. [00:20:01] Andy McCabe: Here, so we can do one of those. [00:20:03] Dan Smigrod: Normal charges would be $15 unless you pay for Rush or Super Rush, or you do so much work with Matterport that you have yet a different starting point for calculating the rates. The second is that you could order a Matterport TruePlan, which creates the file that can be imported into Xactimate. The third option would be to trace over the floor plan that we were just looking at. [00:20:35] Dan Smigrod: Maybe there's a fourth option which is send it off to yet another service just to create an Xactimate. Those are the four options. [00:20:44] Andy McCabe: Yeah. In restoration, your end goal is that Xactimate file. The file extension for an Xactimate file is ESX. It's a .ESX, much like a .PDF or a .JPEG. Your end desire, your end goal is an accurate. ESX file based on this scan. But as you can see, I don't even have the option to get an. ESX file. I couldn't order a TruePlan on this because it was taken with a spherical camera. [00:21:17] Dan Smigrod: Good point. Let me clarify even a little bit more to order a 2D schematic floor plan or a Matterport TruePlan, you must be using a Matterport Pro2 Camera. You couldn't even use an Insta360 ONE X2 or Ricoh Theta V or Ricoh Theta Z1. Matterport doesn't allow you to order floor plans. [00:21:50] Andy McCabe: No, I could get a floor plan. It's going to let me right there. They'll give me a floor plan for $15. [00:21:56] Dan Smigrod: Really, that I'm surprised. [00:21:58] Andy McCabe: But I think they're working on a back-end software. They just released Capture for Android today. [00:22:10] Dan Smigrod: In fact, the announcement today, Matterport Capture for Android is actually in public Beta. That's a Beta version, that's out. But this would be new to me if you could order a Matterport 2D schematic floor plan from a Matterport tour that was created with the Ricoh Theta V or Ricoh Theta Z1 or Ricoh Theta V. That would be a surprise to me. [00:22:39] Andy McCabe: I've done it from the scans. [00:22:46] Andy McCabe: That's just more steps to get to what we need. What we need is the. ESX. I can't even get the. ESX from this. I use a different camera. [00:22:56] Dan Smigrod: No, if you did use the Pro2 and you ordered the Matterport floor plans, I want to say they come in three different file formats, but. ESX is not one of them. [00:23:09] Andy McCabe: Correct. [00:23:11] Dan Smigrod: Do you prefer to work off of the Matterport floor plan view or to have your colleague that's creating the Xactimate work off of this floor plan versus a Matterport? [00:23:31] Andy McCabe: That's what they do. [00:23:31] Dan Smigrod: From Matterport floor plan view? [00:23:33] Andy McCabe: Let me show you. I got to get to Edit. Let me go to Edit here. Let's make this bigger and move this camera over here. The first thing I do, I need to set my scale. I set 20' scale. I don't care where this line is as long is 20' and it's relatively straight. Come on. Let me zoom in. [00:24:09] Dan Smigrod: Well, because there's no data there where you're dropping your point, I would be surprised if your program lets you do that. [00:24:20] Andy McCabe: It knows how long – [00:24:21] Dan Smigrod: It typically is looking for data in order to grab. If you went over to the right where there was actually scan data where you see images, then you probably shouldn't have any trouble dropping it, or you were able to drop it. That's interesting. [00:24:34] Andy McCabe: Let me get it centered. Then I take a picture of that. Make sure my option to show measurements is on. Make sure the whole thing is centered well enough. Oh, come on. Let's go right there. I try to get it straight if I can, I think I messed it up. [00:25:03] Andy McCabe: I did mess it up a little bit. Come on. Get straight. This is the hardest part. [00:25:13] Dan Smigrod: Got it. [00:25:14] Andy McCabe: Straight enough. Taking my picture, boom. View my picture. [00:25:25] Andy McCabe: There it is, outside of full screen view, download it. I'm going to go ahead and download it to – and it's right there. JPEG. ;-). Now come back over to Xactimate. I'm going to not mess up this file. I'm going to open a different brand new one, or just one that's empty. Let's just do this one. [00:26:01] Andy McCabe: This is an older one, it doesn't matter. What we use in Xactimate is called the image underlay function and I just switched to Xactimate X1. The previous version was Xactimate 28. I've been using it for years and now they just switched up so things are a little bit wonky, but I can load imports, underlay image, go to that job I just did and there's our export, we just did. [00:26:41] Andy McCabe: The first thing Xactimate asks you to do is set the scale. [00:26:49] Andy McCabe: There and there-ish. That is a 20' line. Now in Xactimate, I have this picture that I can now, it's set to scale, I pull a room in and put it right there. This is probably the living room and then just trace it out, [00:27:26] Andy McCabe: 16' 11" – that's probably 17' – I like to have the space open at the same time so I can go into this room and double-check my ceiling height. [00:27:51] Andy McCabe: My ceiling height is 9' – it's a box ceiling and then I just start adding rooms. [00:28:02] Andy McCabe: It's an incredibly simple and elegant solution to an expensive problem. I can get this done, I don't do a lot of this anymore. I hire it out so I can get this done for about half of what Matterport TruePlan costs and I can use the spherical cameras and not the Matterport Pro2. The spherical cameras just allow you to scan your property so much faster it's just not as cumbersome. Here we go. [00:28:36] Andy McCabe: We've got our entry foyer. That ceiling height is probably much taller. [00:28:53] Andy McCabe: Oh, how tall is that ceiling? A couple of different ceiling heights let's just pick one. But this is what they do so you just know it's just a matter of running the virtual tape measure, getting your heights right. Go on. [00:29:16] Dan Smigrod: Can you take us back to the Xactimate that you showed earlier that has been completed? [00:29:22] Andy McCabe: Yeah, let's go back to that. You can see the virtual model starting to take shape right there. [00:29:32] Dan Smigrod: I think you've answered a couple of questions here in terms of which camera; Matterport Pro2 3D Camera that may be the preference of some. Matterport Service Providers probably already have that camera, what I'm hearing from you is in a Ricoh Theta Z1, probably your preferred camera of choice for 360s. [00:29:56] Andy McCabe: On residential. [00:29:58] Dan Smigrod: On residential. [00:30:02] Andy McCabe: Small to medium size residential, but on commercial, things start falling apart. [00:30:12] Andy McCabe: The app needs the data from the [structured light] to cover distance. When you're doing a big commercial space, things like, I've done a couple of hotels, 60,000 square foot over five floors. You want the lasers, you want the Pro2 and once you get into something bigger, you're going to use those AprilTags extensively. [00:30:40] Dan Smigrod: We write extensively about Matterport AprilTags in the We Get Around Network Forum: www.WGANForum.com You can also search on the keyword in the Forum: LARGE or APRILTAGS if you're interested in a deeper dive on that topic. A Matterport Pro2 3D Camera, if you're working on a commercial space or a larger space, if you really have just a smaller amount of fire, flood, hurricane damage, then you may be perfectly fine with [00:31:12] Dan Smigrod: the Ricoh Theta Z1 or an Insta360 ONE X2. Today is Thursday, October 7, 2021. Those are the cameras as of today. Then I think what you just showed, Andy, was you didn't need to order a Matterport [2D schematic floor plan]? [00:31:34] Andy McCabe: I didn't need a floor plan or a TruePlan, yeah. [00:31:37] Dan Smigrod: Didn't need a Matterport 2D schematic floor plan which depending on what normal turnaround might be 24 hours, if you paid for rush or super-rush. From your perspective, you don't need that at all. You can use the Matterport floor plan view within the Matterport tour, the digital twin, and create the Xactimate directly. Then I think what I also heard is while you could order a Matterport TruePlan, [00:32:08] Dan Smigrod: which creates the.ESX file that can be imported into Xactimate, sounds like you have a solution for doing it at about half the cost. Have you done a side-by-side comparison of the actual work to look at a Matterport TruePlan within Xactimate? Maybe the same space done by your team? --- (Continued below ...) |
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| (Continued from above...) --- [00:32:32] Andy McCabe: Yes and the detail of the work product from my team is superior. At the end of the day, none of this is AI. Matterport doesn't have a computer doing this stuff. Matterport has an army of Xactimate folks doing this stuff and just by virtue of how long they've been doing, it tells me how much experience their folks have. [00:33:03] Andy McCabe: I don't know if they're onshore, nearshore, or offshore, but the Matterport, I'll show you one example why I always shy away from using TruePlan if I don't get these cabinets. You see these green boxes here? Oops. [00:33:23] Dan Smigrod: Yes. [00:33:26] Andy McCabe: TruePlan doesn't accommodate for those. If you want these windows measured accurately, TruePlan costs more to do that. All these little details, I need these measurements to replace this kitchen. I need to know how much these cabinets and yes, I could go into the space myself and measure them. But it's a whole lot easier when they're already in my sketch for me. [00:33:56] Dan Smigrod: I guess to put it in context since I've been lucky enough to have been through flood damage multiple times. Is that maybe the difference between getting $150,000 reimbursed by the insurance company versus getting $125,000 or getting $100,000? Is that level of detail to say, "No. It's not just paint and drywall and call it a day. It's paint. It's drywall. Its crown molding. This insulation is behind the drywall. There's boxes – where outlets are" and if you don't capture all that stuff, [00:34:31] Dan Smigrod: you're not going to get reimbursed for it. From your perspective, from Claims Delegates perspective, you're able to get Xactimate done for half the cost of a Matterport TruePlan and feel like that it includes more stuff in order to help your clients get reimbursed more money. Is that the gist of it? [00:35:01] Andy McCabe: Yeah. I say that the thickest file wins. [00:35:09] Andy McCabe: The more data you're able to present to backup your case, the better case you have. The current state of technology, Adjusters aren't using this. Carriers aren't using this technology. Yet, I'm sure they will in the near future, they're going to put on a robot or something. [00:35:29] Andy McCabe: When I come with the Matterport and I link the Matterport into the Xactimate file that I create. Then I have this highly detailed Xactimate sketch that most adjusters couldn't even touch. They can't do that, they don't have the experience to do that, they don't have the expertise. Add all these things up, and my file is thicker than theirs. My data is better and so I have a higher chance of winning. When you said $150,000 versus $120,000, that's real. [00:36:04] Dan Smigrod: Yeah. I experienced that because the insurance companies sent out their own adjuster to create the Xactimate. Our general contractor created an Xactimate of the exact same space. One would think that both captured $150,000 worth of construction or renovation that would need to take place to make us whole. [00:36:36] Dan Smigrod: But that was exactly the point, I think our builder truly found us maybe $25,000 - $35,000 more than what the insurance companies first offered to us. [00:36:50] Andy McCabe: Yeah. Well, the insurance adjuster gets paid to create a claim settlement tool. The contractor gets paid to write an estimate. They were both an Xactimate:... they're not for the same purpose. One was created to just settle a claim and move a file off their desk. The other one was created by a contractor so we can actually make a living and make money and make you whole. [00:37:19] Dan Smigrod: Yes. The problem is that the general contractor doesn't capture all of that. Then when he does the renovation, either we're going to be disappointed because he hasn't put in that crown molding, or the light fixtures that we had, or the number of power outlets that we had, or two-by-fours that were a mess. He's either going to not make a profit on his job because his [00:37:50] Dan Smigrod: trying to get us back to where we make us whole or he's going to fall short. He's truly motivated, in fact, he'll make more money because his profit margin is based on plus cost. The bigger the cost, then the bigger the profit margin. [00:38:08] Andy McCabe: Well, what adjusters won't tell you is a claim is not closed until it's closed. So if he truly didn't catch crown molding and there was legitimately crown molding in there that was torn out, there's a supplement process. Most every claim performed by a general contractor has at least one supplement, if not more than one, because the reality is there are things in the house you can't see. There are things that are going to happen that you can't anticipate. [00:38:41] Dan Smigrod: Which happened with us. They opened up walls and "look at that!" In our case based on some of the water damage, the two-by-fours had disintegrated. They weren't there. So there was a lot of stuff that had to be done. Say it a little bit differently, the remediation company came out, put something on the wall that told them what the moisture level was and they didn't take the wall down and general contractor came out and he put his measurement thing on the wall. [00:39:11] Dan Smigrod: He says, "No, those walls have to come out. There's water damage, there's a problem." Bingo, the insurance adjuster came out and he did with the walls intact and then as soon as our general contractor came in and did the moisture testing on the wall. Says, "No, those walls have to come down." He took down the wall and then you could see that all of a sudden, all the two-by-fours vertical were missing from a corner and the only way to fix [00:39:44] Dan Smigrod: that was to actually cut up about a square yard of our floor. It happens on our main level of the house, it's all hardwood floors. That meant all the hardwood floors had to be refinished. All of a sudden, you find that – Someone who really knows what they're doing in terms of finding the problems and correctly documenting can be [00:40:18] Dan Smigrod: a difference between $150,000 claim reimbursed and $100,000 or $125,000 documented in reimbursed. [00:40:35] Dan Smigrod: You showed us the damage from the hurricane in New Orleans. Didn't look like you needed to do it – have any special gear or anything special. But what happens when you have a fire or a flood. Does a Matterport Service Provider have to wear something different or act differently or what's going on? [00:40:53] Andy McCabe: You're going into a construction zone at the very least, in a disaster zone, usually. You want to have your wits about you and take some common sense. After a fire especially, there's so many toxins in the air. A fire burns everything, plastics, organics, everything and that leaves a residue. You don't want to breathe that. Even this house we just looked at, [00:41:27] Andy McCabe: if those walls were open, you'd see mold. You don't want to breathe that either. If you're going to be working in this environment, I would invest in a good half-face respirator. [00:41:39] Dan Smigrod: Spell that for me. [00:41:40] Andy McCabe: Half-face, instead of a full-face, the half-face respirator? [00:41:44] Dan Smigrod: It's HALF. [00:41:45] Andy McCabe: Yes. [00:41:46] Dan Smigrod: Half-face respirator. [00:41:49] Andy McCabe: Yeah. Not just an N95 paper mask. You want something real: something that's going to filter out those toxins that we know are in the air. When it comes to things like mold, you may not be one of those unfortunate folks is very allergic to it, but you can develop sensitivities over time. I have a good friend. He is a mold mediator and he never had problems with mold, but now he can't go into a home with mold without a respirator on. [00:42:24] Andy McCabe: Otherwise, he's out for a day or two just with respiratory distress and everything else. So it's serious. There's a lot of cowboys, especially in the contracting and restoration world that say, "I don't need that." Well, guess what? The older I get, the more I need to protect myself too, so I'm not afraid to put on a mask. I think nowadays we're all used to wearing masks anyway. [00:42:48] Dan Smigrod: Yes. Anything regarding the equipment? Is there something different? Do you bring in lights? Are you putting on your tripod so that it doesn't get wet or soot on it? [00:43:00] Andy McCabe: No, I don't protect my tripod. I mean, that is a throwaway piece of equipment for me. Well, I've been using the same one. It hasn't broken yet, but I'm not afraid to stick it in debris and wetness. You do need lights, the Pro2 does pretty good in low light situations, but even then, you want to be able to supplement that. If I had it here, I'd show you, but I left it in New Orleans. [00:43:32] Andy McCabe: I've got something that looks like this. [00:43:38] Andy McCabe: This is just a Milwaukee Light and this is not the exact same one. I've got one that takes those long Milwaukee batteries. These have a magnet on the end and I took one of these little cell phone magnet things and I put that on the top of my Pro2 and this just sticks right there. It's got a rechargeable battery, so I got about four of those batteries and just turned that sucker on. [00:44:12] Andy McCabe: Sits on top of the Pro2, spins around. Yeah, that's what I did at these hotels with just this much light. [00:44:20] Dan Smigrod: How did you get your cell phone case to affix to the Matterport Pro2 3D Camera? [00:44:28] Andy McCabe: No, not the case. The little piece of metal. [00:44:34] Dan Smigrod: Okay, did that stick or was that magnet? [00:44:38] Andy McCabe: Yeah. These are specific to magnet stuff. [00:44:52] Andy McCabe: This is just for your car. Your phone sticks there? [00:44:57] Dan Smigrod: Yes. How did you get it to stick to the Pro2? [00:45:01] Andy McCabe: Well, these have sticky on them. [00:45:03] Dan Smigrod: Sticky. That's what I'm looking for. It's not a magnet, it's sticky. One side is sticky, but it's actually a magnet once you put that magnet on it. [00:45:13] Andy McCabe: Yeah. This came with this car charger thing. [00:45:18] Dan Smigrod: Yeah. [00:45:19] Andy McCabe: A piece of metal, but they come with glue on the back and you peel this glue off and you stick it to wherever you want to stick to. [00:45:26] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. In fact, we talk a lot about lights. In the We Get Around Network Forum. Multiple options, go to the We Get Around Network Forum www.WGANForum.com. Look for the tag, either lights, LIGHTS, and then you might try HALO it's a tag. You might try LITRA. LIGHTS will pull up a lot of different lighting solutions that Matterport Service Providers have done. The one you have shared is not one that was discussed in the We Get Around Network Forum. [00:45:59] Andy McCabe: This is a solution I came up with. This is not a solution somebody came up with to make money. This is something I came up with to solve a problem and I think a lot of those times, those guys with a GoPro mounts and all this jazz, you're over solving a problem that can be very, very simple. [00:46:22] Dan Smigrod: All right, Andy, we're going to call you MacGyver from now on. You're Macgyvering it. [00:46:34] Dan Smigrod: I understand what an Xactimate is, I understand what it's used for. I understand there's a lot of efficiency using Matterport to get to that Xactimate. If I'm a Matterport Service Provider and I'm not thrown or put off by the fact that I may be working in a hazardous environment, and I need a half-mask and maybe some other gear to keep me safe, [00:47:04] Dan Smigrod: How do Matterport Service Providers get business related to fire, flood and natural disasters? [00:47:13] Andy McCabe: Everything. You want to – who's your user? Who's your target? Is your target the property owner? Maybe you have a relationship with a big property owner, big apartment complex, whatever else and they had a big loss. If you know about it, you have a prior relationship. That's number 1. I always go: prior relationships. You go to them and say, ''Hey, I've got this thing. We've done Matterport for you before, [00:47:44] Andy McCabe: but here's a new application.'' You want to draw that line between, here's the Matterport scan and maybe you bring up an example of an Xactimate sketch, just like I did here and just show them side-by-side and say,'' You're going to need this Xactimate. We can get it from this.'' [00:48:06] Andy McCabe: Short of a prior relationship. Every restoration contractor in the world needs Xactimate. You just got to make that connection for them and say,'' Hey, do you really want to take the time to send your very expensive project manager out to these sites to gather this data. When it's just data gathering, when I can give you this solution. Here's the solution, here's your Xactimate. ESX file and I got it from my Matterport scan.'' [00:48:37] Andy McCabe: You make that connection. It's a tough connection sometimes. I still run into contractors, I don't need a Matterport, and then I say, ''well, okay, you're going to pay me a $155 an hour to go out and hand sketch that.'' No, I don't want that. Okay. ''Well, which is it?''. [00:48:54] Dan Smigrod: Are there other stakeholders? Are there others? I've heard builder, property management companies. Who else in my local market should I go talk to? Is that prior to there being a fire or flood or weather-related damage, or this is just managing expectations forward to say you have a solution? [00:49:25] Andy McCabe: It's always better to pre-sell. Plan that idea of a seed that you have a service that they may need in the future. In the heat of the battle. After something happens is a terrible time – It's not a good time to start selling people on new ideas. I've been using this since 2018. There's people in my industry who've been using it longer than that, but this is very much still a very new idea. [00:50:02] Andy McCabe: People don't see all the data that goes into a real estate scheme. They just see pretty pictures. They see it as a sales tour, but they don't understand that underneath that pretty picture is some very, very valuable data and it's very accurate data, especially if you're using the Pro2. Just [2 percent] or something accurate. The fidelity of that data is priceless. Once you can get somebody who's working in this environment to recognize that, [00:50:37] Andy McCabe: the sell becomes easy because it's quick, [00:50:44] Andy McCabe: If I needed to hand draw or come up with plans for a 60,000 square foot hotel, and I didn't have Matterport, it would take me a month, but I was able to go through it in three days. The work product at the end of those three days was tremendous. They were able to take their work plan and build the rest of that claim file and go forward on it. [00:51:10] Dan Smigrod: To follow up on that. As a Matterport Service Provider, part of my pitch, let's call it three things that's about the most anybody can comprehend. First, I can get the data collected at a much lower rate than sending your expert on site, particularly when it involves travel to and from? [00:51:35] Andy McCabe: Yes. [00:51:35] Dan Smigrod: I'm way less than your $150,000 Xactimate estimator on staff cost. Second is we can capture the data way faster to enable the Xactimate to be created in a fraction of the time, in your example, three days instead of a month or two. [00:52:02] Andy McCabe: Right. A month. [00:52:03] Dan Smigrod: Third, that it captures all the data and the visuals that anyone would possibly need in an insurance claim. [00:52:18] Andy McCabe: I would add, it captures that space in that moment in time. Two years from now when this thing goes legal and they're going to court. What better tool do we have than to say, ''Well, Miss Smith, was that crown molding really in that dining room?" '''Well, let me show you,'' because on this date there was a human being scanning this house '' look at that.'' There it is. [00:52:50] Andy McCabe: You go to the Matterport scan. I like to say actually, it's not my saying, it is a friend of mine's, he says, ''No file with a Matterport scan goes to trial.'' [00:53:00] Dan Smigrod: No file goes to trial. [00:53:02] Andy McCabe: No file with a Matterport goes to trial. [00:53:05] Dan Smigrod: Without a Matterport scan goes to trial. That is awesome, but that's for a reason. [00:53:08] Andy McCabe: The carrier recognizes the irrefutability of that data set and they don't want to presume that the carriers are wrong in the lawsuit, they're being sued. The carrier doesn't want that data, that information presented to a jury, because it's sexy and it tells a great story. You tell the story using Matterport in deposition and discovery. They sell. Period end of story. [00:53:36] Dan Smigrod: Let's call those four great reasons that a Matterport Service Provider can help a property management company, a building owner, or a renovation company. Can I get paid more for doing Matterport scans involving fire, flood, hurricane damage than I can scanning in a residential house? [00:54:04] Andy McCabe: What's the going rate? I don't operate in your world. What's the going rate for residential schemes? [00:54:09] Dan Smigrod: I don't even want to put a number out there, but let's just assume that it's lower than we all would like to get paid. [00:54:16] Andy McCabe: Okay. I heard $0.02 to $0.05 a foot. [00:54:21] Dan Smigrod: I would say that most Matterport Service Providers, since you're going to mention a number. I'm going to say depending on what part of the country and the level of experience and clients you work on $0.10 to $0.12 a square foot. If you're in a larger city and you have a lot of experience and you're working on something else, it may be as much as $0.25 per square foot. If you're working on $0.25 per square foot, and if you're really adding a lot of value in the process, there may be other things that you're doing as part of your deliverable. [00:54:55] Dan Smigrod: It could conceivably be as much as $0.50 a square foot. I won't tell you why I got a $1 per square foot on a project, but we were adding a huge amount of value on that particular project. Then for maybe for Matterport Service Providers that are working on demand for another company, it may be $0.03 to $0.05, to $0.06, or $0.07 where they are a sub to [00:55:25] Dan Smigrod: perhaps Matterport or one of 30 other companies that engage Matterport Service Providers on demand to scan typically residential may be commercial space. What about fire, flood, weather damage? Can I make more money in this vertical? [00:55:45] Andy McCabe: Your starting point is going to be $500 in a small residential, I don't charge less than $1,500. [00:55:55] Andy McCabe: ... [00:55:55] Dan Smigrod: For a Matterport Service Provider that may be lucky to get $199, $250, maybe $300, $350, it's at least going to be $500. [00:56:10] Andy McCabe: It's $500 every day of the week. I don't start the truck for less than $500. [00:56:19] Andy McCabe: Along those lines, I got a call. People in my space know me as a Matterport guy. Even though I try to say, "I'm the Xactimate guy." "No, you're the Matterport guy," whatever. I got a call for a fourplex somewhere in Mississippi. They didn't want to get on an airplane and fly to Mississippi and do this job themselves. They're trying to find a resource, so I said, "All right, I'll do it for $0.20 a foot. But I was able to find a guy through your Network to do it for $0.10 cents a foot. [00:56:53] Dan Smigrod: We Get Around Network; our Referral Network. [00:56:58] Andy McCabe: I made $0.10 a foot for making a phone call and a connection. That guy was more than happy to drive down there. Now, you mentioned something about work environments and being dirty and mucky, I did have a guy turn me down. He said, ''There was no power. There's no electricity''. It wasn't an environment this Matterport Service Provider wanted to operate in, and that was fine. [00:57:29] Andy McCabe: I found someone who did it. But if you're not in the mood to work in a dirty, smelly, hot environment, don't do this work, but be prepared to get $150 a scan instead of $500. [00:57:42] Dan Smigrod: Let's say I'm interested and maybe what you're helping motivates me to say, "Hey, I can get $500 to $1,500 on a residential house that's had fire, flood, maybe partial fire flood damage, hurricane wind damage." Does that include delivering an Xactimate or delivering floor plants? Is this just delivering the Matterport tour? [00:58:07] Andy McCabe: Yeah. I'd say- [00:58:07] Dan Smigrod: That's it. Do I need to Highlight Reel, do I need to provide snapshots? [00:58:13] Andy McCabe: No. [00:58:14] Dan Smigrod: Just the Matterport tour? [00:58:15] Andy McCabe: We don't need the snapshots. We don't use the snapshots, we don't use a tour. We just need the back-office data. [00:58:25] Dan Smigrod: You've mentioned, Andy, that you engage the Matterport Service Provider. Is that a one-off or do you do this? Are you looking for other Matterport Service Providers? [00:58:37] Andy McCabe: I'm always looking. I think we can build a better Network than Matterport can and we can look after ourselves better than Matterport will. [00:58:51] Andy McCabe: I did some work during the freeze in Texas. After I left, there were some clients that wanted me back and I said, "I can't do it. You can't afford me, but here's a guy in Dallas that'll do it." DFW Virtual Tours was amazing, and I've used him five or six times since then because he's happy as a clam. I told him I gave him $500, he jumped, and that's when I realized, you guys aren't getting paid well enough from his Realtors. [00:59:23] Andy McCabe: You're making a living, but you're not really doing well. [00:59:28] Dan Smigrod: I'm interested in you engaging me. Is there an email address? [00:59:34] Andy McCabe: Yeah, just shoot: Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com [00:59:39] Dan Smigrod: Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com ... Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com Claims Delegates actually engages Matterport Service Providers elsewhere in the United States when you don't want to get on a plane or go drive somewhere. It sounds like it actually saves you time, energy, effort and- [01:00:08] Andy McCabe: It helps everybody. [01:00:10] Dan Smigrod: Do I have to have had fire or flood or wind damage experience in order to send you an email? [01:00:17] Andy McCabe: No. [01:00:18] Dan Smigrod: Can you talk me through it? Like this is what's going to happen. [01:00:22] Andy McCabe: Easily. [01:00:22] Dan Smigrod: You need to go buy the following things. You need the following lights. You need the following half-face mask. This is what you need to do it. I'll walk you through that piece of it. By the way, after I help train you, then go pursue that business locally. [01:00:39] Andy McCabe: Yeah. [01:00:40] Dan Smigrod: I think what I'm hearing is this match where, even though you are the Xactimate guy, you're getting known in your space as the Matterport guy, and as a result of that, people contact you, which makes it easy for you to sub-out work to other Matterport Service Providers around the United States, and then you add an additional value on top of [01:01:10] Dan Smigrod: the Matterport tour by delivering an Xactimate to your client. [01:01:16] Andy McCabe: Exactly right. [01:01:18] Dan Smigrod: Awesome. I think I also heard you talk about, just to point out, is if you're a property management company in the United States and you have builders on staff and you need to do an insurance claim, that work can be outsourced; the Xactimate to Claims Delegates. If you're a general contractor or builder and you want to get involved in doing renovation projects that [01:01:49] Dan Smigrod: involve insurance claims but don't have that expertise, then they can reach out to you, Andy. Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com is your email address. They don't need to be in the same city because it's easy enough to engage a Matterport Service Provider through the We Get Around Network or I should say that we refer to you or Matterport Service Providers contact you directly and therefore one way or another, [01:02:21] Dan Smigrod: we're going to help you match up a Matterport Service Provider to take care of that builder or property management company to get that Matterport scan uploaded to the Claims Delegates account and then for you to add value on top of that, creating Xactimate and the other documentation that may be needed. [01:02:45] Andy McCabe: Yeah, exactly. [01:02:46] Dan Smigrod: What haven't we covered on the show today that we should talk about? [01:02:50] Andy McCabe: Value add services. I think your audience, if they're out there already and they're thinking about seriously doing restoration or insurance claims type stuff. They need to add an exterior scanning component. As we all know, Matterport doesn't do exteriors. The Pro2 camera can't operate in broad daylight. The Thetas can, but I've been using Hover. In very much the same way I use Matterport for the interiors, [01:03:23] Andy McCabe: I use Hover for the exteriors. [01:03:25] Dan Smigrod: HOVER.to [01:03:28] Andy McCabe: HOVER.to [01:03:29] Dan Smigrod: HOVER.to Let's maybe save that for another show? [01:03:34] Andy McCabe: Okay. [01:03:35] Dan Smigrod: Hover, and we do talk about it in the We Get Around Network Forum. Andy, thanks so much for being my guest today on the show. [01:03:43] Andy McCabe: Absolutely, it's great to be here. [01:03:45] Dan Smigrod: We've been visiting with Andy McCabe. Andy is Founder and Licensed Insurance Adjuster and Xactimate Team Lead at Claims Delegates in Bender, Oregon, and you can email Andy at: Andy@ClaimsDelegates.com For Andy in Bend Oregon, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum, and you've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5. |
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| Video: Matterport: Importing floor plans or TruePlan into Xactimate | Video courtesy of Matterport YouTube Channel | 6 July 2023 | ||
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| Matterport Blog (28 June 2023) Eliminate Manual Sketching and Speed Up Workflows with Matterport TruePlan | ||
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| Video: How to add Matterport links into Xactimate for Restoration Learn this trick and more in the Restoration Crash Course on August 21st, 2023 www.restorationcrashcourse.com |
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