Jack’s Code Corner: Guest Post from Top Myers About the Value of Information in Fire Insurance Claims

Guest post by Top Myers, of Risk Suppression Partners

ServiceTrade can help reduce a contractor’s Liability Exposure. But before I talk about how let me give you some background information that will show you why.

Over 30 years I have been involved in insuring liability for fire and life safety contractors nationally. Risk Suppression Partners is an actual insurance company, not an insurance broker. We sell insurance through brokers that represent local contractors. We do the underwriting, claims handling, and loss control.

A few years ago, we analyzed thousands of the claims we handled for our insured and found the following:

• 65% of the claims against contractors we insured did nothing wrong but were still penalized.
• In all claims, there are costs that are incurred to handle claims even when you do nothing wrong. These costs include the contractor’s time, the lawyer’s cost, interrogatories, depositions, experts, mediations, and possibly mediations and trials.
• Both the Plaintiff and the contractor have the same costs. This process costs many thousands of dollars for both sides.
• The results of this process increase the cost of insurance premiums for contractors.

What do we need to do to reduce the cost of claims? We must determine if our insured is at fault. To do this we need information. If they are at fault, do they have contractual language such as builders’ risk, waiver of subrogation, liquidated damages, etc? If not, we will try to negotiate a settlement that includes a reduction in cost both sides receive by early settlement.

ServiceTrade users have great information in the system regarding service and inspection work, pictures and information we need from the system with the documentation can go to the claimant with information that allows us to show the claimant why the contractor is not at fault, and why they should close their file on us.

I believe an integrated Service and inspection system set up to help contractors organize their information for their insurance companies process is a winning strategy. We have seen this work with our insured using ServiceTrade.

—

Top Myers has decades of experience in the fire and life safety industry. Most recently, he served as president of Asurio, developers of the BirdDog Inspection System where the Code Whisperer Jack Coffelt served as General Manager until its acquisition by ServiceTrade in 2022.

Top has served on the NFPA 25 committee since the day it was founded, and he also has helped develop and finalize fire code changes as a voting member of NFPA 72 and NFPA 915 standards committees.  He was inducted into the National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA) Hall of Fame in 2021. 

Top is active in many fire sprinkler industry associations and risk management initiatives. He is a principal in the largest insurance/risk management company for the US fire sprinkler industry. An industry thought leader in the truest sense, Top Myers frequently testifies as an expert witness for fire and life safety contractors in liability lawsuits and presents at national and regional conferences on risk management issues.

Get more of Top’s risk management advice in this on-demand webinar:

Turning Risk Into Revenue: A Panel Discussion
Watch to join industry leaders discussing reducing risk and driving repair revenue with fire protection software.