What Should Public Adjusters Look for in Contents Software?

Criteria rather than rankings: what to test, what to ask, and which categories of tool solve which problem. We are one of the options, and we say where we are not the answer.

Kevin Godfrey, KevinLast updated 3 October 2026

How should a public adjuster evaluate contents software?

By whether it produces line items that survive review — identification you can check, a price that traces to a listing, a schedule you can reconcile, and an export the carrier accepts — and only then by how fast it is.

This page does not rank products. We cannot verify another vendor's current behaviour well enough to publish a table about it, and a vendor ranking itself first is worth nothing to the reader. What follows is the criteria we would use, including where they point away from us.

The criteria that matter

What to test in a trial, in rough order of consequence
Criterion	What good looks like	How to test it
Identification quality	Brand and model from the evidence, and a blank where the evidence does not support one	Feed it ten real photographs, including two bad ones
Behaviour when unsure	An empty, editable field — not a confident guess	Submit a blurred photo and see what comes back
Evidence handling	Several photographs of one item become one line	Upload a wide shot and a model plate of the same item
Price provenance	Every price traces to a specific listing, kept on the line	Open a priced line and follow the link
Research quality	The right variant, not a bundle or an accessory	Check a line where capacity or size changes the price
Retail and resale	Retail preferred; resale used only when retail cannot answer, and labelled	Price something discontinued
Classification	A content class on every line, driving its schedule	Change a class and watch the depreciation change
Depreciation	A schedule you can inspect, age-based, reconcilable by hand	Recompute one line with a calculator
RCV and ACV	Figures that foot across the row, tax included where it belongs	Add the row up yourself
Exports	Imports without reformatting; static values, not formulas	Actually import the file
Auditability	Who changed what, when	Edit a line and look for the record
Speed	Hundreds of photographs in one pass, unattended	Time a real claim, not a demo claim

Four categories of tool

Different problems, often confused for each other
Category	Solves	Does not solve
Pricing-only tools	Looking up a replacement price for an item you have already described	Identification, grouping, classification, depreciation
Room-photo extraction	Documenting a room and triaging what is there	Make and model, defensible per-item pricing
Restoration and pack-out systems	Jobs, crews, boxes, storage and logistics	Valuation and carrier-ready schedules
Insurance valuation automation	Evidence to priced, classified, depreciated line items with sources	Structural estimating and carrier claim management

Kevin is the fourth. If your bottleneck is scheduling crews or tracking boxes, the third row is your problem and we are not it.

Questions worth asking any vendor

What happens when the software is not sure what an item is?
Can every price be traced to a specific listing, and is that link stored on the line?
Is the price one listing's price, or a blend of several?
Which depreciation schedule is used, and can I see it?
Does the export import without reformatting, and can I test that before buying?
What is reviewed by a person, and at what point?
What does this cost at my real monthly volume — including past any allowance?
Who owns the data, and what happens to it if I leave?

Our answers, for comparison

Kevin returns a blank, editable field when the evidence does not support an identification. Every engine-priced line is priced from a single listing rather than an average of several, and that listing is stored on the row and printed in the export. The depreciation schedule carries 31 categories and 87 sub-lines, is age-based, runs to 100%, and is computed server-side so the worksheet and the export agree. The export is Xactimate (Excel) · .xlsx in the XactContents template, with static values because the importer rejects formulas. A person reviews the grouping before anything becomes a claim item. Pricing is $249/mo flat, unlimited claims, 2,000 line items a month included and $0.20 an item after, with the first 250 free and no deadline. Jewelry, fine arts, firearms and furs are never auto-priced.

Common questions

What should a public adjuster look for in contents software?

Whether it produces defensible line items: identification you can check, a replacement price that traces to a listing, a content class, depreciation you can reconcile, and an export the carrier can import without rework. Speed matters only once those hold.

Why does evidence handling matter more than features?

Because a contents schedule is argued, not just filed. The questions that come back are "what is this item" and "where did this price come from", and software that cannot answer the second one leaves you reconstructing it by hand months later.

Is room-level photo extraction good enough?

For triage and documentation, often. For valuation, usually not: a room photograph establishes that property existed, rarely which model it was, and a replacement price needs the second thing. Be wary of any tool that reports more items than you took photographs.

How should pricing models be compared?

Work out the cost per claim at your actual volume, not the headline. Per-claim and per-seat pricing punishes a busy month and a growing team respectively; a flat subscription with an item allowance punishes neither, as long as you know what happens past the allowance.

What questions should I put to a vendor?

Ask what happens when the software is unsure, whether a price traces to a listing, whether the export imports without reformatting, what depreciation schedule is used and whether you can see it, who reviews before a line is final, and what the cost is at your real volume.

Where does Kevin fit?

Insurance valuation automation: identification, replacement research, classification, depreciation and a carrier-ready export, with a person reviewing before anything is promoted. It is not estimating software, restoration management, or pack-out logistics, and those are not adjacent problems we solve badly — we do not solve them.

Build contents claims faster with Kevin.

Your first 250 line items are free, with no clock running. $249/mo after that, unlimited claims.

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