Property research

Updated August 14, 2026

Click Research the property on the New proposal page and ProClose looks up whatever it can find about the risk's address from free, keyless public sources, before any carrier has quoted it and before the agent even gets back on the phone.

#Where to find it

The Research the property button sits in the button row on the New proposal page, alongside Build proposal, Save draft, and Enter the numbers by hand. If a call has already been pulled and analyzed and it surfaced a property location, that address is used automatically. If not, or if you have no call on file at all, for example working a referral from just an address, ProClose asks you to type one. Either way, no call is required to run a lookup.

The address is first normalized through the US Census Bureau's free geocoder, so a location heard over the phone and typed loosely still resolves to something the other lookups can use. If it will not geocode at all, ProClose says so and tells you to confirm the address before submitting, rather than guessing.

#What it finds, and how much to trust each part

FEMA flood zone. This one is authoritative: it comes straight from FEMA's own National Flood Hazard Layer, the same data the official flood maps are drawn from. If the property sits in a Special Flood Hazard Area, the panel shows a loud warning: "Special Flood Hazard Area. This property sits in a federally mandated flood zone. Flood is not optional here, quote it." That is not a suggestion, it reflects the federal mandatory purchase requirement that attaches in a Special Flood Hazard Area.

Building footprint. This one is an estimate, and the panel says so every time: "An estimate from OpenStreetMap, volunteer mapped, verify it against the county appraisal district before it goes on a submission." It is a footprint, the ground-level outline of the building, not a gross building area, and it is never treated as authoritative. When OpenStreetMap also happens to know the building's floor count, ProClose multiplies the footprint by that count to estimate a gross area across floors; when it does not, the panel says plainly that this is footprint only, not the total building area. Coverage is decent in town and thin in the country, since it depends entirely on volunteer mapping.

What nobody can look up. The panel always lists what a public dataset simply cannot answer. Roof age tops that list every time: there is no public dataset for it anywhere, full stop. It comes from a permit record, an inspection, or the insured's own answer, never from a lookup. Authoritative square footage and year built have the same honest answer: that lives with the county appraisal district, not with an estimated OpenStreetMap footprint.

Four links, each with a one-line reason to click it:

  • County appraisal district. A search straight to the district covering that address. This, not the footprint estimate above, is the number to trust for square footage, year built, and improvement detail.
  • FEMA flood map. The official map panel, for when you need to see the actual FIRM rather than just the zone code.
  • Aerial view. Roof shape, condition, obvious repairs, rooftop units, and what sits next door.
  • Street view. Construction type, storefront condition, visible wear, and whether the imagery looks recent enough to trust.

#Have Claude do the deeper research

Below the links sits a ready-made prompt in a copyable box, with a Copy the prompt button. It asks Claude to go find total square footage, year built, construction type, roof covering and any evidence of when it was last replaced, unit count if it is habitational, recent sale price and date, and anything that would worry an underwriter, starting with the county appraisal district record and then city or county building permits.

The prompt is deliberately strict about honesty: it instructs Claude to write "not found" for anything it cannot verify rather than estimate, infer from comparable properties, or fill a gap with a typical value, and to cite a source URL next to every fact it does return. An invented square footage or year built is worse than a blank one, since it goes straight to an underwriter as if it were real.

#Ask the client these

When there is enough context to build one, the panel also lists the specific questions no public dataset can answer, numbered and ready to send: roof age and any replacement or repair history, total square footage and stories, year built and whether the roof, wiring, plumbing, or HVAC have been updated, sprinklers and fire alarm, construction type, and losses in the last five years, even small unreported ones. A habitational risk also gets asked about unit count, occupancy, and tenant screening.

A Copy as an email button copies all of it as a ready-to-send message, greeting and closing included. This button copies text to your clipboard. It never sends anything. Paste it into your own email, review it, and send it yourself, the same rule as everywhere else in ProClose that touches a client communication.