What are the responsibilities and job description for the Centralized Restoration Project Estimator (Remote) position at American Restoration Operations LLC?
Position Summary
The Centralized Project Estimator is responsible for developing accurate, complete, and highly defensible restoration estimates remotely for residential, commercial, and large-loss projects across multiple company brands and operating locations. This position serves as a centralized estimating resource, partnering with field personnel, project managers, and insurance stakeholders to convert field documentation into comprehensive estimates that maximize justified revenue while ensuring technical accuracy, estimating consistency, and compliance with company standards and industry best practices.
In addition to estimate production, the Centralized Project Estimator performs technical reviews of submitted scopes, documentation, and estimates to identify deficiencies, improve estimating consistency, and provide targeted coaching to field teams. This role is instrumental in increasing profitability, improving collections, reducing claim settlement times, minimizing settlement variance, and establishing standardized estimating practices across the organization.
Success in this position requires strong technical estimating skills, a thorough understanding of restoration operations, exceptional attention to detail, and the ability to work independently while supporting multiple brands in a fast-paced remote environment.
Essential Responsibilities
Estimate Development
- Prepare detailed, accurate, and fully defensible restoration estimates remotely for multiple branch locations and brands.
- Write estimates for residential, commercial, and large-loss projects across all restoration service lines, including:
- Water Mitigation
- Fire & Smoke Damage
- Mold Remediation
- Biohazard & Environmental Services
- Reconstruction
- Contents
- Pack-Out / Pack-Back
- Emergency Services
- Develop estimates utilizing field documentation, photographs, moisture readings, drying reports, sketches, invoices, subcontractor documentation, and supporting records.
- Ensure estimates accurately reflect the approved scope of work while maximizing all justified and supported billing opportunities.
- Produce estimates that comply with current pricing databases, carrier guidelines, TPA requirements, and company estimating standards.
- Complete estimate revisions, supplements, and change orders as required.
Estimate Quality Assurance & Technical Review
- Audit submitted scopes, documentation, and estimates for technical accuracy, completeness, and compliance.
- Identify scope omissions, documentation deficiencies, pricing inconsistencies, and missed estimating opportunities.
- Verify estimate accuracy before submission to insurance carriers or clients.
- Ensure estimate packages contain sufficient supporting documentation to maximize claim defensibility.
- Maintain standardized estimating practices across all supported brands and operating locations.
- Recommend corrections and improvements that reduce estimate revisions and improve settlement success.
Operational Support & Continuous Improvement
The Centralized Project Estimator serves as a technical resource for field operations by improving documentation quality, scope accuracy, estimating consistency, and overall claim performance.
Responsibilities include:
- Providing constructive, targeted feedback to project managers, estimators, and field personnel.
- Coaching teams on proper field scoping techniques.
- Improving photographic documentation.
- Improving moisture documentation and psychrometric reporting.
- Identifying recurring estimating trends and operational improvement opportunities.
- Assisting with estimating best practices, standard operating procedures, and internal training initiatives.
- Promoting consistency across all supported brands and locations.
Insurance Support & Collections
- Produce technically accurate and well-supported estimates that improve claim defensibility.
- Reduce settlement variance through complete scope development and proper documentation.
- Improve estimate acceptance rates through accurate pricing and supporting documentation.
- Assist with estimate revisions, supplements, and responses to carrier requests.
- Support insurance negotiations by ensuring estimate packages are complete, accurate, and technically defensible.
- Help reduce claim cycle times and improve overall collections performance.
Business Performance
This position directly contributes to organizational success by:
- Increasing estimate accuracy and quality.
- Improving profitability through complete scope development.
- Increasing average collected revenue per project.
- Reducing estimate revisions.
- Improving estimate turnaround time.
- Improving documentation quality across supported locations.
- Reducing claim settlement timelines.
- Reducing settlement variance.
- Increasing estimate acceptance rates.
- Driving measurable improvements in collections.
- Supporting standardized estimating practices throughout the organization.
Minimum Qualifications
- Minimum of five (5) years of restoration industry experience.
- Minimum of two (2) years of professional estimating experience.
- Advanced working knowledge of Xactimate.
- Strong understanding of residential and commercial restoration practices.
- Experience writing estimates across multiple restoration service lines.
- Ability to interpret field documentation and develop complete, accurate restoration estimates.
- Strong understanding of mitigation, reconstruction, contents, and emergency services.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Strong organizational and time-management skills.
- Ability to prioritize multiple assignments while meeting deadlines.
- High attention to detail with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work independently in a fully remote environment.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience using Symbility.
- Experience preparing and reviewing Time & Material (T&M) estimates.
- Experience working within Third-Party Administrator (TPA) programs.
- Experience with insurance carrier estimating guidelines and claim review processes.
- Experience supporting multiple branch locations or franchise operations.
- Experience with commercial and large-loss restoration projects.
Preferred IICRC Certifications:
- Water Damage Restoration Technician (WTR)
- Applied Structural Drying (ASD)
- Applied Microbial Remediation Technician (AMRT)
Technical Skills
Preferred experience with:
- Xactimate
- Symbility
- Time & Material estimating
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Restoration management platforms (DASH, PSA, Luxor, MICA, Encircle, or similar)
- Cloud-based collaboration platforms
Work Environment
- Full-time remote position.
- Reliable high-speed internet and dedicated home office required.
- Standard business hours with flexibility based on workload.
- Minimal travel may be required to support catastrophe (CAT) events, operational meetings, training, or special projects.
Core Competencies
- Technical estimating expertise
- Restoration operations knowledge
- Insurance claims knowledge
- Quality assurance mindset
- Analytical thinking
- Continuous improvement
- Communication and coaching
- Accountability
- Organization
- Problem solving
- Customer service
- Attention to detail
- Collaboration
- Time management
Impact of the Role
The Centralized Project Estimator serves as a strategic technical resource responsible for improving estimate quality, increasing justified revenue, strengthening claim defensibility, accelerating collections, and driving operational consistency across multiple brands and operating locations.
By combining technical estimating expertise with quality assurance and operational coaching, this role helps maximize profitability, reduce settlement delays, improve estimate acceptance rates, strengthen field documentation, and support successful insurance claim outcomes throughout the organization.
Salary : $60,000 - $70,000