In this episode of the Achieve Podcast, host Taylor Baker interviews Josh England, founder of AAMS (aams.ai), an AI‑powered platform aimed at transforming the insurance property‑restoration estimating process. England explains his 18‑year industry background and the collective 50‑year experience of his board, which highlighted the chronic delays and high overhead (4‑5% of estimate value) caused by manual estimating. AAMS’s solution automates scope creation, verification against IICRC standards, and integrates with Xactimate, reducing turnaround from 48‑72 hours to about 10 minutes and cutting overhead to roughly 0.5% of the estimate. The product is in beta, with a small team of developers, legal, CFO, and advisors, and is focused on market exposure and adoption among the ~16,000 U.S. restoration firms. England emphasizes a human‑in‑the‑loop approach, positioning AI as an enhancer rather than a replacement, and highlights internal analytics that provide KPI tracking and industry benchmarking. When asked about constraints, he cites completing beta testing and integration as the 90‑day priority, and advises firms to focus on converting mitigation jobs into higher‑margin reconstruction work. Lessons learned include challenges in hiring reliable estimators and navigating complex workflows, standards, and coding. England expresses excitement about delivering rapid, accurate estimates that streamline communication with homeowners and insurers, with a projected 30‑60 day rollout. Listeners are directed to aams.ai and Josh’s LinkedIn for further engagement.
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Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, those who are shaking up their industries and having an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and today excited to be joined by Josh England, the founder at AAMS, and you can find them at aams.ai. Now, Josh, Thank you for joining us today. Appreciate you coming out. Yeah, no problem.
Absolutely.
Now, for those getting to know you, give us the backstory real quick, because you guys are in a bit of a niche here with what you guys are doing. How did you get here and who are you serving?
Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, what we are doing is in the insurance property restoration field. Um, the reason we're there is, uh, that is where, um, our backgrounds, um, started. So I've got nearly 18 years in the industry, and we've got about another 50 years on our, on our board in the industry. And all of what we're building has grown out of the, the uneasiness or the unsettledness around the estimating process, which delays everything in the job cycle process for the insurance companies. And any of your listeners that have actually gone through a claim in their home are probably very aware, aware of this.
Absolutely. And now, for you, as with the organization, how big is the team and organization right now?
Oh, we are still building out, but we've got, uh, we've got the 4 board members, we've got a team of developers, uh, legal staff, CFO, and, uh, some advisory board members and consultants on board as well.
That's awesome. And what would you say is going to be the biggest driving factor for growth?
Uh, for us right now, it's going to be exposure, um, and then, uh, just market adoption out there. Once people see this, it's going to be a— it's going to be a fairly large change for people in the industry, um, but we, we anticipate it's going to be a welcome change.
Yeah, absolutely, because like you had mentioned, the insurance process and claiming can be arduous at times. That's right. So looking back for you, what turning points have had the greatest impact or changed the way you run the organization and think about it?
Uh, so far the, the biggest impact for me as the original founder on this thing was understanding that, um, I am not going to be capable or have the experience or expertise in all the levels necessary in order to run, run this outfit. So, um, being able to give up that control that equity in the idea and the business to make sure that we have an opportunity to grow and be successful was the biggest learning point for me so far.
Yeah, I can definitely see that. And that's good leadership there. You can know where your strengths are.
And yeah, you gotta know what you're not good at.
Well stated. So this next part is kind of a two-part question. When it comes to your outreach, your messaging marketing systems, what's worked well in the past to attract and keep customers?
Yeah, so, so far with where we're at, and, uh, we're, we're at the beta stage, we're in the final testing to, to prove this out, um, to take this to insurance carriers and, and take this, uh, nationwide and then worldwide after that. So far for us, being able to sell the vision of what we're building has been the, the biggest seller for us. So when restoration companies out there across the United States— and there's about 16,000 of them in the United States— when they understand that this has the opportunity to streamline the process, make them more effective on the storytelling side to the insurance company, potentially, you know, cut down on overhead inside of their office, their expenditure, you get ears perked up. So when you tell them we're going to save you money and make you more money at the same time, yeah, it's, you know, people listen.
Absolutely. And where do you feel like there's still opportunity and money on the table this is going to be helping with?
Yeah, once we get through our beta testing and prove where we're at, when people see that final product and can compare that to their current product and then the expenditure to get to both of those, it's a, it's a, it's a huge difference. So in our industry, it costs about 4, 4 to 5% of your estimate value on average to have humans complete that loop. For ours, it's going to be half a percent. And when you're talking about companies that do between $6 and $30 million a year, that's an extraordinary amount of money in those local offices. So when people start seeing that the— I don't know, are we potentially catching more of the estimate value in your written scopes and your written work? That's creating you more money, but also it's costing you less money to get to that number. I think that's going to be truly significant.
Absolutely, doing a more thorough job. And do you feel like it's going to be taking over the human aspect, or is it just humans using it more effectively?
So it's humans using it more effectively. Been very careful to, to put it in a position to frame it that way. So anything that our product comes out with We want to make sure that there's a human on the back end to make sure that everything looks correct. There's the opportunity to adjust anything that we have. But we're not looking to supplant a human in the process. We want to provide a knowledge— a bridge to that knowledge gap that may be in the field to make sure that the companies are as successful as they should be.
Yeah, and I love that distinction there because there's an element that you'd mentioned with the human aspect where humans can adjust, they can fine-tune it, they live in the real world. AI can't quite see that. It can get you to the 5-yard line, but it takes the human.
That's right. Yeah, yeah. And it's, uh, yeah, it's only meant to be, um, an enhancer, um, here, not a, uh, not a deterrent for people to come into the industry. Because quite frankly, the reason that our product needs to exist because those deterrents already exist out there. And that knowledge gap, that experience gap between somebody new and somebody that can do these estimates, that's where we're seeing the biggest impact in our industry.
That makes a lot of sense. It makes the training learning cycle a lot faster.
That's right. That's right.
Okay. Now, with talk of AI and automation, where else have you guys found ways to utilize it internally?
Internally, we're, uh, Obviously on the, on the back end, the analytics side that's being built in so you can actually see where your money's going, where it's coming from, areas, KPIs, areas of interest for the company to make sure that they can address those areas or see where they're surpassing the industry averages. So it's, it's going to help you be better at a particular job and then overall it's going to give you the tools to help you be better as a company.
Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. So Josh, if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?
Uh, for the company or for the industry?
I guess either or both.
Yeah, yeah. Um, as a company right now, our constraint, um, we are still going through, uh, like I said, the beta testing phase to get us to that, that final complete product that allows us to go to those insurance carriers and those people that can write the last big check we need to actually take off and implement this across the industry. So that's our hurdle, is finishing up the integrations that are necessary and getting that product out there and getting into market. 90 days for the industry. That's a tougher one. 90 days for the industry. The focus for these offices that need to experience more revenue growth, if they— so our industry is split up between mitigation and the rebuild. So you demo what's affected for the insurance company and then you rebuild it as is. Or to the pre-loss standard. There's a lot of focus in our industry to get the mitigation portion in and be effective there. Not as much emphasis put on making sure that mitigation turns into a reconstruction. And that's where your biggest revenue dollars are. That's typically a, you know, between a 3 and 5 times revenue return versus the mitigation. Mitigation is great profit margin. but your revenue number comes from the reconstruction. Um, so I would encourage people to put a heavy emphasis on making sure that $6,000 mitigation job turns into that $25,000 reconstruction job. So heavy emphasis there, um, can help you grow your revenue numbers the quickest in the industry.
That makes a lot of sense. Wow. And think about that, there's a lot of opportunity right there. So when you think about your own journey, the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out to you, and which ones feel like they took longer to learn than they should have?
Yeah, the ones that really stand out is, um, when you hire an estimator into your office, the person that's going out there and determining what the dollar figure is going to be and ultimately determining what your profit margin is going to be. You typically have word of mouth to go off of, and it's typically the words coming out of their mouth during the interview. So you, you're listening and you're assuming and you're hoping you've hired somebody that can write a quality estimate out there. And the return to, to verify that takes a little time. You got to see it. Um, and that was one of the biggest frustrations. It's also an understanding of what the workflow is in our industry and understanding critical path and IICRC standards and international building codes, all of those things. You gotta, you gotta have a good understanding of all those, how you put them together and how you make sure that you're getting paid through Xactimate, which is the industry standard estimating platform. You got to make sure that all of that's getting implemented and put in correctly. And that's the biggest frustration we had. Either the work, the scope of work was not correct or incomplete in the level of detail needed, or just, you know, flat out missed portions. You know, humans are humans. So it was 2.5, 3 years ago. Frustrated that process and knowing what technology was on the horizon, we started down this road to try to turn those things that are so structured on how you're supposed to do it through the IICRC standards and building codes and all of those things, turn that into a technology product to make sure that when you go on site, that the scope of work is going to be verified, verifiable, and complete. Every single time.
That's awesome. That's amazing. So much headache.
It has been a little headache, but it's been a labor of love so far. That's good.
So last question, when you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?
Being able to get this into the hands of all the users at the end of the road. So, um, in our industry right now, it takes an average of 24 to 48 hours to actually put together an estimate, a preliminary estimate, to send over to the insurance company for verification. Every time you miss something that they catch or you catch, you supplement, uh, it adds the time it takes to write that supplement, an additional 24 to 48 hours for the insurance company to either approve it or reject it. So it adds a bunch of time. Now we're talking about a product that comes in And 10 minutes after walking and knocking on that door, you have an automated estimate with each line item verified by the IICRC standards that our industry uses that can go straight back to insurance. So you're taking a 48 to 72 hour process and you're turning into 10, 12 minutes. And that's what I'm excited about seeing. There's a lot of, there's a lot of backend burden in our industry, communication back and forth with the homeowner, with the insurance adjuster. Sometimes they have special teams that can tell you what can come out and what can't come out. And there's a lot of conversation back and forth with that. Our system automates almost all of that that comes through, through object recognition and AI. So all of those conversations that slow things down, they're no longer having to take place because you're already proving those on the front end, and the adjuster already has them before you get back in your car from the initial inspection.
That's awesome. I have an uncle who was an adjuster, and my dad's a general contractor, and so the back and forth you're talking about, like, that's real.
Yeah, it's painful. And then you got a homeowner sitting there living in a house that has a kitchen they can't use. And you're talking about every 24 hours. Like, that's a, that's a heavy burden for a homeowner to have to deal with. So yeah, the more you shorten that gap and get it down to that 10, 11-day window where homeowners actually say they understand and are happy with the process, the better the carrier and the company is going to do.
Yeah, 10 minutes. Wow, that's impressive. Even an hour would be amazing.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Wow. Well, Josh, I'm excited to see this roll out and get going. And for those who want to learn more, then go to aams.ai, then go to LinkedIn. Where else can they find you or learn more and sign up?
Right now we are limited there until we get our beta test done, but they're free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Josh England on LinkedIn, through our website. More than happy to engage that way. Currently, until we clear all the NDA hurdles and all of those things, we're going to keep it simple that way. But yeah, love to hear from anybody that has questions or wants to know how they can get involved in it.
And we're going to be 30 to 60 days out?
We are potentially looking at a 30-day window. Yeah. So finishing up the integration and the beta test rollout. This week.
Wow, that'd be amazing. So yes, reach out. Thank you, Josh. And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's episode, if you are in the insurance adjusting industry, reach out to Josh and the team, get on the signup sheet, get ready. As soon as this is out, give them some feedback, use it, and see how many more estimates you can get to and how more accurate they are. So again, Josh, thank you for joining us today, and we'll see you all next episode of the Achieve Podcast.
