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How to Automate Replacement Cost Research Without Sacrificing Accuracy

Automation should search, filter and rank comparable listings. Deciding what the item is stays the gatekeeper — a flawless search for the wrong product returns a confident, wrong price.

Kevin Godfrey, KevinLast updated 3 October 2026

Can replacement-cost research be automated safely?

The search can: finding candidate listings, discarding the ones that are not the same product, and pricing from one that is. The identification underneath it cannot be delegated, which is why ambiguous items come back unpriced instead of guessed.

The failure mode to design against is not a missing price. It is a plausible price for the wrong item, because that one survives review — the number looks reasonable, so nobody checks the listing behind it. Everything below exists to make that failure loud instead of quiet.

What a defensible search needs

  • Brand — the single most discriminating term available.
  • Product type — what the thing is, in the words a retailer uses.
  • Model or collection — where a plate, a badge or a barcode gives it.
  • Variant — capacity, size or finish, but only where it changes the price.
  • Quantity — so a six-pack is not priced as a single unit, or the reverse.
  • Current availability — a product still sold prices from retail; one that is not falls to resale.

The description and the query are not the same string

This is the mistake that costs the most prices. A description should be as specific as the evidence allows, because an adjuster and a carrier read it. A query should be as short as will still identify the product, because every additional word excludes listings.

The bad matches worth filtering

Listings that look like the item and are not
TrapWhat it looks likeWhy it is wrong
Bundle for singleA four-pack at a four-pack priceInflates one line by the multiple
Wrong capacityThe 1TB listing for a 256GB itemCapacity often drives most of the price
Wrong generationThis year’s model for a six-year-old itemPrices the successor, not the replacement
Wrong formA wall mount instead of the televisionAn accessory for the product is not the product
Duplicate listingThe same offer surfaced twiceLets one seller dominate the set
Accessory bundleCamera plus lens plus bagValues property the insured did not own

Retail first, resale when retail cannot answer

Most household property is still sold new, and retail prices it. Vintage, discontinued and collectible items frequently are not, and for those the resale market is the only honest source of a replacement figure. Kevin uses it raw — no grossing-up toward a hypothetical retail price, no working backwards from a depreciated figure — and marks it as resale wherever the comparable is shown.

Why the source link is the point

A price without its listing is an assertion. A price with the listing attached is evidence, and it costs nothing extra to keep if the software keeps it automatically. That is the difference between a file that survives a desk review and one that becomes a negotiation about where a number came from.

Common questions

What should be automated, and what should not?
Automate the search, the filtering and the ranking. Do not automate identity: deciding what the item actually is remains the gate everything else passes through, because a perfect search for the wrong product returns a confident, wrong price.
Why does a long, detailed description make a worse search?
Because every extra word is a filter. A description should be specific — it is what the adjuster and the carrier read — while the terms used to search need to be short enough that the product is still findable. They are not the same string, and treating them as one is a common way to end up with no results at all.
Does damage language affect the price?
It should not. Condition and damage wording belongs in the description of the item, not in the terms used to find a replacement — every photograph on a contents claim is of damaged property, and the replacement being priced is not damaged. Kevin keeps those two separate.
How is one comparable chosen out of many?
Listings that are not the same product are discarded, duplicates collapse, and outliers are dropped. The line is then priced from a single remaining listing — and that listing is linked on the row. The price is therefore a real number somebody is charging, not an average of several.
Does the panel show every comparable found?
No. It shows a sample. Most items have more comparables behind them than the few surfaced, so the panel is a window into the set rather than the whole set.
What happens when search cannot answer?
The line comes back with a blank, editable price rather than a guess. If the retail market is too thin, the resale market is used instead — raw, with no gross-up, and labelled as resale so nobody reads a used price as a new-replacement one.

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