Summer brings another round of weather events to manage
After securing a damaged property by assigning a mitigation contractor, dealing with contents is the next step.
As we move through summer 2022, insurance carriers and agents are faced with another year of responding to claims arising from flooding, lightning, wildfires, hurricanes and tornados.
Every season has its challenges in the insurance industry, and summertime is no exception. As you manage your claims and work to bring your policyholders to pre-loss condition, it is good to know what types of services can provide you with assistance and flexibility in managing that claim.
After you have secured the home or business by assigning a mitigation contractor, dealing with contents is your next responsibility.
General contents versus specialty contents
Several types of companies will work to restore, clean and disinfect the contents in the building. Since clothing is a primary necessity — right after food and shelter — you will likely assign a specialty contents restoration company right away. Specialty companies restore items in any or all the following categories: textiles, electronics and appliances, lightning strike and surge validations, documents, and art and collectibles. A full-service specialty restoration company will have experts in all the categories.
General contents are defined as items such as furniture, dishes, fixtures, lamps and other hard goods. These companies can include your mitigation or general contractors or pack out companies.
What to look for in a specialty contents restoration partner
- Availability: Look for partners that work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Anything less is too much risk for your business. Your partner must have the ability to restore on-site for speed or pack out contents when contractors need space to rebuild.
- Both on-site and offsite services: Not all specialty restoration companies have the ability or offer both on-site and offsite restoration. Look for companies that do both and have case studies they are willing to share. On-site can be important to speed full recovery and/or help limit cost when minimal services are required. At times, removal provides improved restoration, and the storage facilities provides for other services and build-outs to be performed.
- Location: Are they reasonably close to respond quickly? Local is usually best. However, if you are in a weather-event prone location, sometimes having a partner too close can be a problem as they may be shut down as well. Consider having one or two partners for different types of loss events.
- Depth of resources: During times of disaster, labor and expertise are in short supply. Is your partner able to scale resources quickly from inside and outside their geographic region? Are they part of a national company or network that will lend skilled and vetted labor to site quickly? This is critically important today with labor shortages throughout the country. Ask about their equipment and storage facilities. Some companies say they restore commercial grade appliances but often tell the adjuster to total loss the items because they do not have the trucks or warehouse space to handle large items.
- Customer satisfaction and warranties: Check the companies’ online ratings and ask for customer testimonials. For electronics and appliance restoration, your company should offer a warranty on their work. For electronics, gym equipment and appliances, small soot particles can permeate the inside of the electronics. Often, this is not detectable by sight. However, within 6-9 months, these small particles can corrode and cause the item to stop working. A good electronics restoration company will dismantle, internally clean, and rebuild the electronics and appliances.
- Breadth of experts: Earlier in the article, we listed several specialty categories, each requiring very distinct skill sets — an artist does not restore televisions, a textile restoration expert does not restore documents. Very few electronics restoration companies have the experience and resources to support appliance restoration — on site or when the appliances need to be moved off-site, returned, and re-installed.
Restoration vs. replacement?
The answer is different for every affected item. How much will it cost to restore? How many labor hours are required versus replacement costs? Are these items available at a reasonable price?
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on supply chains. There may be situations that replacement in another time would have been the right choice, however, if a kitchen appliance is back ordered for 3 months, restoration is a cost-effective solution to re-opening that restaurant or getting a family back home. Make sure your specialty restoration company has the knowledge to guide you on what items are best restored and which should be replaced.
What can be restored?
Just about anything can be restored. But, as we indicated earlier, deciding what to restore requires looking at many factors. The key thing to remember, no matter the condition of the item, assume it can be restored. Do consult a restoration professional.
Here is a short list for each of the specialty categories:
Electronics and appliances
- Refrigerators and freezers
- Dishwashers
- Microwaves
- Cook tops and ovens
- Coffee makers
- Washers and dryers
- Televisions
- Computers and printers
- Vacuums
- Power tools
- Generators
- Lawn and snow equipment
- Fitness Equipment
- Lightning and surge validations
Art and décor
- Fine Arts
- Casual décor
- Paintings
- Works on paper
- Photographs
- Sculptures
- Collectibles
- Ceramics
- Antiques
- Taxidermy
Textiles
- Clothing: uniforms, guest clothing
- Linens: bedding, pillows, tablecloths, towels
- Drapery
- Rugs and tapestries
- Flags
Documents and data recovery
- Paper files
- Digital content
- Hard drive recovery
- External recovery
- Databases
- Flash drives
- Server recovery
Susan Kuchta (susan.kuchta@prismspecialties.com) serves as vice president of Sales and Strategy for Prism Specialties.
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