What Goes Into an Insurance Repair Estimate

Most homeowners only ever ask us for one kind of document: a quotation. You describe the work, we visit, we price it, and we send you a written quote at no charge. That is true whether the job is a new staircase, fitted wardrobes, or repairing a damaged door — the quote costs nothing because it exists to help you decide whether to go ahead.

A formal insurance or reinstatement estimate serves a different purpose. It is not written to persuade you to commission work. It is written for your insurer or claims handler, setting out the damage and the remedial work in a structured form they can assess against your policy. Because it is prepared for a third party rather than for you, it follows a different format and takes considerably more care to put together, and that is reflected in the fee.

The confusion is understandable. Both documents involve a carpenter looking at your property and putting a price on timber work, so on the surface they can look similar. The difference is who the document is written for and what it needs to withstand. A quotation only has to satisfy you. An estimate has to satisfy a claims handler assessing it against a policy, which is why it needs more structure, more detail, and a format that holds up under scrutiny.

A formal insurance or reinstatement estimate costs £125–£250, depending on the scope and complexity of the damage, with no VAT, payable upfront by invoice. There is no VAT added to that figure. The fee is invoiced and paid before any visit takes place, not once the document is in your hands.

A site visit is included within that fee wherever one is needed to assess the damage properly, which covers most reinstatement estimates. In a small number of straightforward cases, where clear photographs already show the full extent of the damage, we may be able to prepare the estimate without attending the property. We confirm which applies to your situation before you are asked to pay.

Once the scope is confirmed and, where needed, the visit has taken place, the estimate itself is assembled. It sets out the scope of the damage — exactly which doors, frames, staircases, skirting runs or structural timber elements are affected, and how badly. It then describes the remedial work required to put each item right, whether that means repair or replacement, and the materials needed to match the existing joinery.

Labour is costed against that scope, and the whole thing is broken into itemised costs rather than a single lump sum, so a claims handler can check each line individually. Where it helps the claim, we include a photographic record taken at the site visit. All of this is brought together into a single written document prepared for submission to your insurer or claims handler — not a sales quote, and not for our own records.

It is worth being clear about the limits of what we do. We are not loss assessors, and we do not represent you in correspondence or negotiation with your insurer. Those are separate, regulated services, and we do not offer them. Our role is to prepare the written estimate — the scope, the remedial work, the materials, the labour and the itemised costs — so that you have an independent, professionally prepared document to submit yourself.

We also cannot say in advance what your insurer or claims handler will do with that document. We set it out clearly, accurately and in a form intended to be assessable, but whether it is accepted, queried, or sent back with questions is a decision that sits between you and your insurer, not with us.

When you order a formal estimate, you have a 14-day cancellation right starting from the point the order is placed. During that period, we will not begin preparing the document, and we will not attend a site visit, unless you expressly ask us to start sooner. That request needs to come from you, in writing, before any work begins within the 14 days.

This protects you if circumstances change — your claim is resolved another way, or your insurer tells you a different format is needed — before any work has started on your behalf. It also means there is no pressure to accept the fee and then feel locked in; you can step back within those 14 days with nothing having started.

None of the above changes how we price everyday carpentry work. If you want a new door, repaired skirting, or a staircase upgrade and there is no insurance claim involved, you ask for a quotation, and that quotation is free, exactly as it is for every other service we offer. The £125–£250 fee applies only to the formal document described on this page, prepared specifically for submission to an insurer or claims handler.

If you have a claim to estimate, our insurance and reinstatement estimates service page sets out the full process and order form. For everything else to do with repairs and security, the Repairs, Security & Insurance Estimates hub covers the rest of our guidance.