With Hurricane Matthew downgraded to a tropical cyclone, it is time for affected businesses,
property owners, and insurers to focus on quantifying the amount of damage
caused by the storm. By some estimates,
Hurricane Matthew will generation over 100,000 insurance claims and between $4 billion and $7.5
billion in property losses. Although the
focus is typically on pre-storm preparation, the immediate steps taken this
week will be important to any business owner seeking to present an adequate
claim to its insurer for property damage.
Safety is always the first
priority. Do not put yourself, your
employees, of first responders in danger.
Currently in North Carolina, the predictions are for worsening flooding in many low lying
parts of the eastern part of the state, with peak flooding not reaching some
areas until Wednesday (four days after the storm passed).
Once the threat of imminent danger has receded, the next step should be to
document your loss. Thorough documentation
of the damage to your property will be invaluable. Hopefully you will also have photographs or
video from before the storm, so that any claim presented to an insurer can show
both the before and after photographs of the condition of the property. Because cell phones and digital cameras are
not limited by physical film, do not hesitate to shoot dozens or hundreds of
photographs. Videos may be helpful as
well.
At the same time you are documenting the damage, you should immediately put
your insurer on notice of the loss. You
should call your insurer to begin putting them on notice as soon as you arrive
at the property if you assess any physical loss. After you give initial notice, you can follow
up with complete details, provide the photographs you have taken, etc. The insurer will likely eventually send an
adjuster to physical inspect the damage to the property.
It is important to quickly give notice for several reasons. As a legal matter, giving prompt notice
prevents having a claim denied by an insurer on the basis of a late notice
defense. As a practical matter, because of
the large number of claims that will be filed within a short period of time,
some insurers will likely handle the claims on a first-come, first-serve
basis. Getting your claim in quickly
gets you closer to the front of the line.
If immediate repairs are needed, take plenty of additional photos of the
damage, the repairs in progress, and the final repairs. Maintain copies of documentation regarding
the repairs, and provide those to your insurer.
If your business had to buy or rent additional equipment as a result of
the damage, or you suffered inventory loss, you will want to maintain detailed
documentation of these costs as well.
Finally, whichever employee you assign to provide information to the insurer
should maintain a journal or notebook.
This should include copies of all documents submitted to the insurance
company, along with a log of all conversations with the insurer or its
representatives. The log should include
the contact information of anyone from the insurer that you have contacted
with, the date and time, the topics you discussed, and any additional information
which you believe may be useful in the future or in the event of a
dispute.