How Can a Field Inspection Minimize Your Risk of Insuring a Property with Existing Damage?

If you haven’t heard, 2016 has been a record setting year for Texas insured property losses for both homes and automobiles. This is primarily due to the number of damaging hail storms that have pounded the state and the wide-spread flooding that Texas has experienced so far this year.

To demonstrate how severe the impact that the 2016 storms have had on Texas insured property losses from prior years, the insured losses experienced in the first two quarters of 2016 have already surpassed every year’s total losses since Hurricane Ike in 2008.

These massive insured property losses in 2016 are certainly not limited to the state of Texas. Most recently, Hurricane Matthew made its way up the Southeast Coast, and its estimated that this storm will result in nearly $6 billion in insured property losses.

As an insurance company, with so many properties across the country being damaged from these storms, how can you minimize your risk of writing an insurance policy for a property that has existing damage? This is where field inspections can play an invaluable role in protecting insurance companies from taking on a potentially crippling loss from an insured property.

While insurance companies are very capable in providing a description of a property, they may not be professionally trained in knowing what to look for when it comes to a property that could have pre-existing damage. However, by partnering with a field inspector, insurance companies can gain an accurate account of all of the conditions on and around the property that could impact risk for the insurer.

Whether we like it or not, natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding, and tornadoes are a fact of life. When these unfortunate events do occur, it’s in an insurance company’s best interest to engage field inspectors to carefully examine a property to ensure that they won’t be writing a policy for a property with pre-existing damage.

Making a field inspection part of the underwriting process can allow your insurance company to put its best foot forward in minimizing risk.

For more than 35 years, the property and casualty insurance industry has been relying on the expertise of our seasoned field inspectors to help them make prudent decisions when insuring properties. Please contact us at Insurance Risk Services to learn how we can help you to make more informed underwriting decisions.