Hurricane Advocacy

Three hurricanes made landfall in the United States in 2017. One area that was significantly impacted was the Gulf Coast of Florida. These storms affected multiple McGriff clients and specifically many property management businesses. Many properties suffered major roof damage, allowing water intrusion. Claims were submitted to the client’s insurance carriers, but they were unable to resolve differences between the engineering reports and the carrier’s inspection reports for multiple clients. Complicating matters was the lack of contractors to handle repairs in the area and the inflated pricing due to extreme demand. Claims were at an impasse and the process had come to a virtual standstill. When claims remained open for more than eight months after the storm, the McGriff agents requested claim advocacy from the McGriff Risk Services team.

The McGriff team worked together to implement a process of reviewing all claims and developing a strategic plan of action to move every claim to conclusion. Oversight of the claims was transitioned to each affected carrier’s supervising adjuster and the outstanding issues were reviewed by all parties. A major contractor and the McGriff team advocating for these clients requested each carrier perform re-inspections of all the properties and collaborate with the contractor to determine the discrepancies between the engineering reports and the inspection reports.

More than 40 outstanding property claims were resolved over the next few months allowing the recovery process to finally begin. As the McGriff team continued to advocate for their clients, holding bi-weekly calls with all parties involved, claims for the remaining six clients were finalized and payments of more than $7.3 million were issued by the carriers. Clients were grateful for the claim advocacy provided by their McGriff team.

Disclaimer: Individual results will vary.