Job Description

We specialize in mitigating and rebuilding residential and commercial properties damaged by fire, water, storms, and other disasters. We partner with leading insurance carriers and handle everything from emergency cleanup to complete rebuilds, with a focus on safety, integrity, and advocacy. As entrepreneurs, we take full ownership of the work we do and the families we serve.

At Merit, our purpose is simple and non-negotiable: we work together as a team so we can change lives. Teamwork is the foundation of everything we do—because teamwork creates impact, and impact changes lives. We exist to help people, and the only way we do that at the highest level is by moving as one team, aligned in mission, values, and execution.

Why we exist. We exist for two families. The families we serve and the families inside this company. When we work together and serve our clients at the highest level, both families win.

As the Estimating Service Line Director for Merit Restorations, you will report to the Vice President, Branch Operations & Integration Performance. This is a cross-divisional leadership role that owns Merit's estimating standard across every service line and every branch.

This is not a project estimator role—you are not writing estimates on individual jobs. You are building the system, the playbook, and the people that produce accurate, well-documented, defensible estimates across the entire company, then training and coaching the Project Managers and estimators across every branch to execute to that standard, consistently, every time. This is a full-time, exempt, director-level role based in Northern Virginia (Purcellville) with regular travel across all Merit markets, including Lynchburg, Chesapeake, and Winchester, VA, and Dallas, TX.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Core duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

Estimating Standards & Systems

• Own Merit's master estimating line item library—the standard every Project Manager and estimator works from across all divisions.
• Set the supplement strategy by carrier and line item, with winning documentation and a playbook that recovers revenue at scale.
• Build and maintain the estimating audit and quality system, conducting regular file reviews that find the gaps between what Merit scopes and what it collects.

Training & Performance

• Lead all estimating training company-wide, including onboarding, platform proficiency, carrier negotiation coaching, and scenario-based skill development.
• Own the estimate-to-collection data—what's being left on the table, why, and how to close it.

Requirements

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Experience & Technical

• 7+ years of experience in insurance restoration, with deep estimating, supplement, and carrier negotiation expertise.
• Advanced estimating platform proficiency, with the ability to write airtight scopes, supplement complex claims, and teach others to do both.
• A real track record of supplement recovery—knowing what belongs in a claim, how to document it, and how to defend it when a carrier pushes back.

Character & Competencies

• Strong coaching and training instincts—building people, not just processes.
• Multi-location or multi-branch experience, with the ability to hold a standard when every branch wants to do it their own way.
• A cross-divisional mindset, equally comfortable with a mitigation job and a Large Loss commercial scope.
• Lives Merit’s core values every day: servant leadership, innovation, gratitude, growth, impact, honor, and grit.
• Able to travel regularly across Merit's Virginia and Texas markets.