“Since Hurricane Sandy’s destruction of the East Coast in late 2012, some businesses, real estate owners and insurance companies are still feeling the hit. While NYC alone estimated $19B in losses, the majority of these were related to business interruption, flood and property damage.
For insurance companies, losses had to be assessed as to whether the damage was caused by a covered hazard or water from the flood.
President of Schaefer Enterprises, Greg Schaefer says, ‘Utility service language came into play on most policies. Each insurance carrier has particular language that describes the coverage in detail, eg. distances from building, physical damage to the premises, etc.’
As a result, owners and operators in the areas affected are now taking more measures to protect the operations of their building, rewriting policies and changing flood barriers, facing reconstruction costs as they evaluate how some of these damages can be avoided in the future.
Greg says, ‘We are currently seeing the expenses associated with this to be tremendous. All new piping, mechanical equipment and especially the rigging is very costly. In most cases, back-up generators and utility hubs are also being moved from the basement to the mid-level floors.'”
View the full article online at FForward.
