If your business property is damaged by a severe tropical storm, hurricane, fire, water or other loss you count on your insurance company to provide the financial compensation to repair or replace your property and get your business promptly back to full production. The process of pursuing an insurance claim can be challenging if your insurance carrier disregards its legal obligation to act in good faith when handling your business property loss claim. The insurance company may drag its feet and delay paying the claim. In many cases, the insurance carrier might deny the claim outright.
If you are a business owner, you might have obtained both flood insurance from the government-backed National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and/or a private insurance policy for wind and other perils . The interplay of these types of coverage have an important impact on business insurance claims because commercial property insurance policies do not typically cover flood damage. Flood damage is one of the most costly types of property damage because even a few inches of flooding can do tens of thousands of dollars in property damage. Regardless of the type of loss your business experiences, you might need to pursue multiple claims against multiple policies, such as business interruption claims, property damage claims, flood loss, or other types of claims.
The massive number of claims made following a severe storm does not excuse undervalued claims, unreasonable delays, or unjustified denials. Florida law imposes a duty of good faith on insurance companies to handle claims and treat policyholders fairly.
Some of the key factors we consider when evaluating a commercial property damage claim include:
- The nature and extent of the damage to the commercial property
- Types of damage that should be covered by the policy
- The insurers conduct in handling the claim to this point
- The impact of the deductible on the value of the claim
- Potentially applicable policy provisions and/or exclusions
- The type of policy: “all risks” or “covered cause of losses”
- All available coverages and policies
Business insurance claims can be especially complicated because of the high value of typical claims, damage to specialized equipment and a broader array of losses that includes lost profits. Business insurance claims also can be challenging because important documents that were on the premises might have been destroyed or otherwise unavailable because of the damage caused by the storm.
You can reach Miami Insurance Claims Lawyer J.P. Gonzalez-Sirgo by dialing his direct number at (786) 272-5841, calling the main office at (305) 461-1095, or Toll Free at 1 (866) 71-CLAIM or email Attorney Gonzalez-Sirgo directly at [email protected].
