Crane & Rigging Case Study – Overnight Parking Loss

When a claim occurs, how does your current insurance broker guide you through the process and drive positive outcomes? Claims are frustrating, and when they occur it can be chaotic and stressful. However, you need a claims management plan in place before the claim occurs and an experienced partner to act quickly and decisively, as this is critical for mitigating the impact of the claim to your business. Claim payments and reserves are the largest factor when determining your insurance premium and have a direct impact on your reputation in the construction industry. You need an experienced partner that has the tools and resources to ensure you have a claims management plan in place to mitigate the claim as soon it happens. A proactive risk management approach means reduced insurance costs, and protection for your business assets and reputation.

 

How Does the Acrisure/IBTX Risk Management Program Drive Positive Claim Outcomes? Preparation!

• The IBTX team assist in developing and improving your existing safety risk management program and provide training to help prevent claims from occurring
• We ensure your team has, and understands, clear and decisive standard operating procedures in the event of a claim
• We help with contract management and enhanced transfer of risk via enhanced work ticket indemnification and insurance requirements
• We have the experience and expertise as well as a vast network of partnerships with leading crane industry risk management, engineering, claims, and legal professionals to make sure we are consistently bringing your the best information, strategies, and resources we can muster

 

The Acrisure/IBTX risk management program in action

The Scenario: Crane client was at a job site and due to permitting delays from the property owner, they job could not be completed in one day. Crane company was instructed where to park the crane overnight. The next morning (Friday), we discovered that the crane had fallen through the parking lot, due to structural issues of the parking lot.

 

Decisive action:

• Friday
  • IBTX/Acrisure and our crane client had representatives on site within hours to perform a full incident investigation and take statements from all parties involved.
  • Same day coordination with engineer, insurance carrier, claims adjuster, attorney, and client to develop our strategy
• Saturday
  • Jim Weithorn, the premier crane engineer in the United States, prepared a full reporting outlining the cause of the incident. Our crane client is clearly not at fault
• Monday
  • Claims submitted to insurance liability and equipment insurance carriers
  • Meeting with client, Acrisure/IBTX, engineer, insurance carriers, claims adjusters to assign legal counsel and strategy.
  • Crane is able to be removed and sent to repair shop since a thorough investigation was done quickly.

 

The Result: We were able to perform a full investigation quickly and determine fault, or lack thereof. The risk management plan was effectively executed since members of the claims management team were previously identified. The property owner attempted to hire our engineer, but was unable to due to the proactive measure taken. The crane was repaired quickly and paid for by the equipment insurer. With liability determined and strong risk transfer in place via the work ticket, we were able to transfer the cost of this claim to the responsible parties. In addition to keeping loss dollars off of our client’s policy, the insurance carriers view our client in a very positive light. We were able to demonstrate that our crane client was not a fault and that we have the risk management protocols in place to positively impact claim outcomes. What could have been a negative, was actually seen as a positive from the insurance carriers, given we were able to quickly respond and mitigate the impact of the claim and illustrated that our client is a best in class crane risk and highly desirable from an insurance risk standpoint.