How Insurance Companies Underpay Corporate and Landlord Claims
Insurers deploy sophisticated tactics targeting large-scale claims. Understanding these shows why professional advocacy matters.
Coinsurance Penalties on Corporate Properties
Your corporate policy requires insuring property at 90% of actual replacement cost. Your coverage falls 10% short. The insurer applies a coinsurance penalty reducing your $5 million claim to $3.5 million.
Corporate properties often have inadequate coverage limits due to property value appreciation. Insurers never warn about coinsurance penalties until after damage occurs.
We challenge coinsurance penalties by obtaining appraisals showing adequate coverage. We argue policy ambiguities favor coverage. We negotiate reduced penalties. On multi-million dollar claims, eliminating coinsurance penalties recovers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Business Interruption Interdependency Denials
Fire damages your corporate manufacturing facility. Your retail locations suffer sales losses because they cannot obtain products from the damaged facility. The insurer pays for manufacturing site losses but denies retail location losses.
They claim retail location losses aren't covered because those sites suffered no physical damage. They ignore that your policy includes contingent business interruption coverage for exactly this situation.
We document interdependencies between corporate locations. We prove how damage at one site cascaded to affect others. We recover business interruption losses across your entire operation, not just damaged locations.
Loss of Rental Income Manipulation
Fire damaged your 20-unit apartment building. Repairs took eight months. The insurer calculates loss of rental income using only six months, claiming you completed repairs too slowly.
They argue you should have expedited construction. They refuse to pay lost rent for the full repair period.
We document why repairs required eight months including permit delays, contractor scheduling, and inspection requirements. We prove the recovery period was reasonable. We recover lost rental income for the actual repair timeline.
Tenant Damage Exclusions
Your tenant caused fire damage requiring $80,000 in renovations. The insurer denies the claim citing tenant-caused damage exclusions.
They argue tenant actions caused the loss, not a covered peril. They claim you should pursue the tenant for damages rather than claiming insurance.
We document that tenant negligence causing fire is a covered peril under your policy. We prove the loss qualifies as sudden and accidental. We recover full repair costs under fire damage provisions.
Rental Rate Disputes
Property damage prevented you from leasing vacant units for six months. Market rent for your units is $2,500 monthly. The insurer claims fair rental value is only $1,800, using outdated comparable properties.
They minimize loss of rental income by undervaluing what you could have charged. They use cherry-picked data showing lower rents in inferior locations.
We obtain rental market surveys proving actual market rates for your property type and location. We document that your rental rates match current market. We recover fair rental value based on accurate market data.
Blanket Coverage Limitations
Your corporate blanket policy covers multiple locations under one combined limit. Fire destroys one location valued at $3 million. The insurer argues that blanket coverage reduces per-location payouts because total coverage must cover all locations.
They try to divide available coverage across all possible locations to minimize what they pay for actual damaged properties. They misinterpret blanket coverage provisions to reduce payouts.
We analyze blanket coverage language proving it provides full coverage up to policy limits for each location. We fight insurer attempts to reduce payments by misapplying blanket provisions.
