Insurance Coverage for Contractors Handling Coronavirus Disinfection

[The DYOJO]

The Intentional Restorer’s segment Three Questions with a Pro, brought to you in collaboration with Restoration & Remediation (R&R) Magazine and The DYOJO.

Jon Isaacson interviewed David Princeton who has been in the insurance industry for over 15 years, helping clients to recover millions of dollars, and is the founder of Advocate Claim Services (ACS). David brings an interesting perspective to this ongoing conversation, having seen claims through the lens of an Insurance Company, a Top 50 Brokerage, and most recently a Buyer as the Director of Corporate Risk for a private equity group. David’s passion for helping businesses survive after a loss is grounded in the ACS tagline, “We don’t sell insurance, we make it work!”

(excerpt)

Experiences prior to COVID-19 with doubtful and disputed claims

The novel coronavirus pandemic has exposed areas where we need to improve our processes and resiliency. We asked David what he has observed with regard to a lack of understanding of insurance policy language even prior to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. David notes that policy language is incredibly important to understand how to approach a potentially “doubtful and disputed (D&D) claim.”

As a claims advocate, David assists clients with D&D claims, “Advocating for insureds to extract the coverage they should be granted under the policy.” He notes that a good claims outcome starts with two key things:

• Listening to the story of the client and asking probative questions to understand what the client is going through.
• The most common failures in the application of insurance, by adjusters, brokers and insured are in reading and understanding the policy coverages. An insurance policy is a dynamic contract formed by a three party relationship between the insured, the broker and the underwriter.

David discussed common failures in mold remediation estimating with suggestions for structuring the estimate so that the coverages within the policy can be appropriately applied to the services rendered. We discussed some general estimating guidelines for telling the story of the loss and documenting the project details so that funding available within the policy can be distributed appropriately to protect the owner as well as ensure payment for the contractor. David notes that adjusters should be writing their own sheets, which may be a follow-up discussion with him in the future.

Read the rest of the article in R&R Magazine and/or watch the Video.

See also David’s article Business Income Insurance and COVID-19