CAT deployment break-even
Fees vs expenses, net per day.
Adjuster business · Calculator
Free · no login
Product overview
Decide whether a deployment is worth leaving home for — with arithmetic instead of optimism. Enter the assignment length, expected claims per day, the average schedule fee and your split, then the real expenses: the drive, lodging, meals, dailies. You get gross fees, itemized expenses, estimated self-employment tax, net after tax, net per day, and the claim count that just covers costs — plus what the numbers look like if volume runs 25% light. Reach for it before saying yes, when the recruiter's gross number is doing all the talking.
The model is simple and honest: gross fees are days × claims per day × (average fee × split). Expenses are the round-trip mileage at your rate plus per-day costs — lodging, meals, fuel and misc — times the deployment length. Self-employment tax is estimated the standard way: 15.3% on 92.35% of net, which approximates the real liability well enough for a go/no-go call (income tax still comes on top). Break-even is expenses divided by take-home per claim, rounded up — the claims you work for free before the deployment earns anything. The ±25% sensitivity rows exist because promised volume is the least reliable number in the projection.
Product details
- Sold by
- Mensuria
- Product category
- Free field tool · Calculator
- Delivery method
- Web app · no login
- Cost
- Free
Highlights
- Deterministic — the same inputs give the same result, every time.
- Built for the trade, sized to feed Xactimate line-item quantities.
- Free — no login, no card.
- Works from a phone at the loss.
Vendor insights
Mensuria writes a neutral scope built to survive review — every line item sourced to a photo, anything unprovable held back and flagged for you. It never files the estimate; a licensed adjuster confirms every line and stays the adjuster of record. Mensuria is independent and not affiliated with Verisk or Xactimate; “Xactimate-ready” means the worksheet is organized for Quick Entry.
Pricing
This tool is free — no login, no card. The full scope-drafting product is priced below; your first claim is free.
Details
Delivery method
Mensuria is a web app — nothing to install. You work a claim in the browser and export a room-grouped, Xactimate-ready worksheet (codes, quantities, descriptions) organized for Quick Entry. There is no native .ESX import; you key the reviewed line items into Xactimate and stay in control.
Terms and conditions
Use of Mensuria is subject to our Terms of Service. Your first claim is free with no card; paid plans are billed monthly and cancel anytime.
More from this vendor
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Support
Support
Reach the team at support@mensuria.com . You will hear back from people who have written a scope, not a ticket queue.
Onboarding
Your first claim walks you through capture, draft, review, and export step by step, so you are productive on claim one — no training required.
Refund policy
Monthly plans cancel anytime; the CAT Season Pass is a one-time add-on with no commitment.
Common questions
Compute net per day, not gross: gross fees minus travel, lodging, meals, and self-employment tax, divided by days deployed — then compare that against what you'd earn at home and what the time away costs you. A deployment grossing $60,000 can net a surprising fraction of that once 30 nights of lodging and SE tax land. The volume assumption deserves the most skepticism, which is why this calculator shows the result at 75% of promised claims too. If the deal only works at full volume, it doesn't work.
The recurring set: lodging (the big one — CAT-zone rates spike after events), meals, fuel beyond the mileage figure, laundry, parking, and the round-trip drive itself. Equipment, software subscriptions, licensing, and E&O are real costs too but usually amortize across the year rather than one deployment. Enter the per-day costs honestly — $150 lodging and $50 meals is $6,000 over 30 days before a single mile — and remember most deployment expenses are business deductions, which is where good records pay for themselves.
Independent adjusters on 1099s pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare: 15.3% applied to 92.35% of net self-employment earnings, with the Social Security portion capped at the annual wage base. On $50,000 of deployment net that's roughly $7,000 — money that isn't withheld for you, which is why quarterly estimated payments exist. This calculator estimates SE tax for planning; income tax comes on top of it, and none of this is tax advice — a preparer who knows adjuster income is worth their fee.
- Adjuster business
Tier lookup, split, and deployment gross.
- General
10-and-10 math plus the three-trades test.
Typical life by material, % depreciated at age.
- General
SF / SY / LF / CF.