The Independent Insurance Claim Adjuster Resource

by Phillip Crimaldi – Editor & Insurance Claim Analyst – May 19th, 2010

On any given day my office is prepared to remind inland residential property owners how much worse their $5,000 claim for water damage could have been.  While we are sympathetic to the average homeowners property claim, one mention of Hurricane Katrina will usually save us several minutes of ranting from the common property owner.  I always tell them “it could have been much worse”.

It is easy to remind these these folks about how much worse it could have been because I was there in Slidell, Marrero, Chalmette and dozens of other cities and towns for the months following Hurricane Katrina.  Witnessing the interiors of people’s homes and lives is an image that will be permanently etched in my mind forever.

That’s exactly why I think this oil spill poses a serious threat to all property owners along the Gulf Coast.


If you’re not following my thoughts just yet, let me drop this one on you:

“Wind Driven Oil”

Just in case you’re out of the loop, dozens of insurers had Civil and Regulatory Complaints filed against them for failing to recognize that some interior water damage was caused by rain;  we’ll have to spare you the details of these cases for another post.

Wind driven oil might become a reality for insurers, property owners and every living thing on the Gulf Coast line.

We’re not talking about requiring the heartless destruction that Mother Nature rained down on the Gulf in late summer of 2005, but rather only needing ~70 mph gusts to drive that oil right off the coast line and up into the air.  How far it travels likely depends on how fast the wind is moving and several other factors, but one thing is for sure; if cinder-block buildings couldn’t stand the wind, neither will the oil.  It’s true that we’re here attempting to calculate the potential risk to property late on a Wednesday night, but what about the rest of the Gulf?  We’ll just have to leave that up to the scientists and engineers, but if our calculations are correct it could be devastating to vegetation, nature and property.



While the news headlines, scientists, meteorologists and everyone else is talking about how hurricane season might carry the oil around the Gulf, it seems almost foolish to doubt that mother nature couldn’t put an unpredictable amount of that oil on land.  Even if Hurricane season doesn’t make a full on strike against the Gulf. I’m willing to bet insurers will have a hard time denying the window cleaning bill, at minimum. Leave a comment!

Phillip Crimaldi is the Director and majority shareholder of Peak Claims, Inc. -  A Denver, Colorado based cargo damage surveying and claim services company.

Currently there is virtually no regulation for Workers’ Compensation carriers, general carriers, or their independent professional surveillance crews to conduct investigation and surveillance with any regard a claimant’s interests, private or not in The State of Colorado.  Synonymous laws for investigation of these and other insurance coverages could not be found in surrounding states.  Although it wouldn’t be considered a best-practice, there is thing preventing any investigator, adjuster, or surveillance professional from hanging upside down in ree staring through the claimant’s window with night goggles on, so long as they aren’t trespassing. a worst case scenario, one might get caught and end up with a restraining order but the odds that any aimant files suit is slim to begin with because of their mutual interest in keeping benefits or maining undiscovered if they are in fact fraudulently accepting benefits.

Even if excessive surveillance could possibly be misconstrued as a bad faith attempt to delay or gate indemnification, Schnacker v.State Farm has set a well tested bar in Colorado which prevents a third party claimant from suing a first party insurer because they are not a party to the insurance contract. Workers’ Compensation insurance falls under this category because the employer is the party the contract, not the employee or claimant in the case.

Workers’ Compensation insurers have a capacity to amass evidence against claimants, thus, any unbiased reader of this review or investigator of such claims has wonder what prevents these insurers and surveillance professionals from falsely denying claims altogether after surveillance is over, even if evidence exists against doing so. Further, we have to ask why they would need such freedom to go around investigating the claims that they choose to investigate.  For reasons thus far it seems that Workers’ Compensation is a largely unfair practice to the claimant, but we should review the new point from insurers as well as the reasoning for these needs are addressed in three parts as follows: Read more…

Colorado House Bill 10-1012 was introduced on January 13th, 2010 by freshman representative Sal Pace (email) of the House of Representatives in District 46 which serves Pueblo, Colorado, and by Morgan Carroll (email) who is a State Senator in District 29, which serves Aurora, CO.  Senator Carroll is also a consumer and civil rights attorney in a local mother-daughter law firm.  The complete bill history is available through the Colorado General Assembly.

HB10-1012 was actually created from a scenario where Pinnacol Assurance, a quasi-state powered mutual insurance company and workers’ compensation policy provider was perceived as having excessive surplus reserves that could help to cover Colorado budget short-falls. Read more…

An unbelievably destructive and sobering force of nature caused by an 8.8 magnitude (Richter Scale) earthquake occurred this Saturday morning in South Central Chile near the city of Concepción in Region VIII.  This is the largest quake to strike since 1990 when a 9.1 magnitude quake off the Northern Coast of Sumatra rattled in 2004, killing 227,898 people.

Insurance claim damages are already estimated in excess of $2 billion dollars indicating another hard hit to the world’s largest property and casualty insurers.  It is believed this quake will top Haiti’s losses due to the higher cost of construction and real estate in Chile.  Losses have already been considered catastrophic for some property & casualty insurers this year.
Read more…