Verisk’s October 2026 price lists are live for more than 460 regions across the United States and Canada. The headline number for restoration operators is billable labor: up 4.51% in the US since October 2025, the largest increase of any major component in the file. Canada’s billable labor rose 5.37% over the same period.
That is the number your scopes are priced against. If your estimates are still anchored to last fall’s labor, you are writing Q4 work at last year’s pay rates — and the difference is coming out of margin, not out of the carrier.
The numbers that matter
Every figure below is from Verisk’s October 2026 pricing-trends bulletin, published October 1, 2026. Verisk’s percentages are national averages drawn from its pricing research and completed-estimate transactions; your market’s list will differ, which is the point of checking it.
| Component | Change | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Billable labor — US | +4.51% | since Oct 2025 |
| Billable labor — Canada | +5.37% | since Oct 2025 |
| Common lumber materials — US | +1.60% | since Sep 2026 |
| Lumber prices — US | +1.54% | since Oct 2025 |
| Lumber prices — Canada | −6.54% | since Oct 2025 |
| Siding materials — US | −2.11% | since Oct 2025 |
| Gasoline — US | +9.68% | since Sep 2026 |
| Gasoline — US | +43.20% | year over year |
| Top 200 items by spend — US | +2.07% | since Oct 2025 |
| Top 200 items by usage — US | +2.59% | since Oct 2025 |
Labor is the story; fuel is the sleeper
A 4.51% labor increase is not a rounding change. Labor is the component restoration scopes are built from — mitigation techs, demolition crews, carpenters, painters — and it outran every material category Verisk tracks this year. Lumber, the input that dominated pricing conversations for two years, rose just 1.54% in the US over the same window and fell 6.54% in Canada.
Fuel moved the other way, violently. US gasoline is up 9.68% since the September list and 43.20% year over year, with the national average at $4.465 a gallon on September 28. Fuel rarely appears as its own conversation in a scope review, but it sits inside every trip charge, every equipment run, and every crew dispatch — and a 43% year-over-year move does not stay absorbed forever.
The change that matters most arrives next month
Buried at the bottom of the bulletin, under next month’s planned additions, is the line operators should circle: Verisk is adding a line item for material handling — “la manutention.”
Handling is work your crews already do. Contents get moved so floors can come up. Materials get staged, carried, and re-carried. Debris gets handled twice on the way to the dumpster. Today that labor hides inside other line items or gets absorbed as overhead. A dedicated item makes it visible, describable, and billable as itself — the same path ozone and hydroxyl treatment items took in August, when Verisk added them to the trauma and crime-scene category.
Also queued for next month: items for removing and scraping textured drywall, hardwood floor register items, additional drywall items, and door jamb and strike items, plus clarified gutter-guard definitions. Each one converts an argument with an adjuster into a lookup.
What to do with this in October
Download the October list for your market before you write another scope. Verisk’s own bulletin warns that national averages conceal market-level variation — the 4.51% is the country’s number, not your price list’s, and the gap between the two is exactly where supplements are won and lost.
Then do the arithmetic on one recent closed job. Reprice its labor at your market’s October rates and compare it to what you billed. That single comparison tells you whether the year’s labor drift has been a rounding error for your shop or a quiet tax on every job — and how hard to push on the scopes you write this quarter.
The price file is not background noise. It is the pay schedule for the whole industry, it moved 4.51% in the component you sell most, and it is about to start paying for the handling work you have been giving away. Read your market’s version of it.
Source: Verisk, “Tendances des listes de prix: octobre 2026” (Pricing Trends: October 2026), published October 1, 2026, Lehi, Utah. Verisk notes that reported changes are national averages based on its pricing research and that actual changes vary by pricing market.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Verisk’s billable labor increase in October 2026? Billable labor showed the largest increase of any major component: up 4.51% in the United States and 5.37% in Canada since October 2025, per Verisk’s October 2026 pricing-trends bulletin.
What is the new material-handling line item? Verisk lists “add item for material handling” among the major additions planned for next month’s price-list release. It would give estimators a dedicated line item for handling work — moving contents and materials — that is currently buried inside other items or absorbed as overhead.
Which regions do the October 2026 price lists cover? Verisk updated the October 2026 price lists for more than 460 pricing regions across the United States and Canada, available for download in Xactimate and XactRemodel as of October 1, 2026.
Why does the labor increase matter more than materials this year? Because restoration scopes are labor-built. Lumber rose only 1.54% in the US since October 2025 while billable labor rose 4.51% — so an estimate anchored to last year’s file underprices the crew, not the lumber rack.
The codes behind the prices
Verisk’s file prices the work — the pack makes sure your scope asks for all of it: 60+ missed line items with the published source for every code.