Experience Files

"Craig, I just took on a project 100 miles in each direction. Can I bill the insurance company for the travel?" The answer is a resounding yes, you absolutely can and should bill for this travel. You need to account for both the mileage (covering fuel, wear and tear on the vehicle) and the labor associated with the "windshield time" spent traveling in the company vehicle.

Let's break down how to approach this effectively:

1. Define Your Normal Service Area: First, establish what you consider your standard service radius. How far will you typically travel before you begin billing for excessive travel? I generally recommend a 20-mile radius for urban areas and up to 60 miles for more rural regions. Deduct this normal service area from the one-way distance from your office to the project. This gives you a fair, billable travel distance that's justifiable to all parties.

2. Handling Multiple Projects in One Area: If you're inspecting or monitoring multiple projects in the same distant town, it's not fair to bill a single insurance company for your full round trip. In this situation, I recommend charging for one-way travel and labor for each client. This ensures both clients proportionately absorb the total travel burden.

3. Prepare for Resistance: Be ready for pushback from insurance adjusters or carriers. Many will argue that travel is a "cost of doing business." When faced with this, my usual reply is, "Then I'm glad we are in agreement." If you incur a cost specifically associated with their insured's project that wouldn't normally be incurred in your standard service area, you should bill for it. It's a legitimate project expense, not just business overhead.

4. Integrate Travel into Monitoring Line Items: Your equipment monitoring line item in Xactimate specifically states in its description: "Includes: Hourly labor to travel to job-site to deliver, setup, inspect, move and adjust, monitor, take moisture readings, etc. and/or take down & remove dryers and dehumidifiers." This explicitly means you should include travel time in your monitoring labor. Don't just track the time spent on the project; account for the full time spent traveling to and from the site for monitoring activities.

5. Factor in Traffic and Route Planning: Consider traffic conditions when calculating travel time. Driving into a rural area is vastly different from navigating a metropolis during rush hour. Account for potential road construction and plan your route accordingly. Route "A" might be 125 miles and take 1.5 hours, while Route B is 100 miles but could take 2.5 hours due to congestion. Optimize for time, not just shortest distance.

While you should always encourage your employees to work with a sense of urgency, never compromise safety by driving recklessly to cut down on travel expenses. The long-term risk of an employee wrecking a company vehicle, or worse, causing harm to themselves or another driver, could result in serious liability and potentially the end of your company.