jeff posted on January 30, 2010 01:26
The articles on water damage claims written in the Winter 2007 of Subrogator raised some interesting shortfalls regarding the potential of successful subrogation. This response outlines some issues.
The successful and economic remediation of a water damage building revolves around many factors other than the contractor’s competence and compliance to the IICRC S500 & S520 standards and guidelines. My initial point follows audits and inspections of Miami, New Orleans following Katrina, Thailand following the Tsunami, & extensive wide area flooding in Carlisle in 2005 (UK). The only place mould was found was in Miami and UK and the only place mold became a litigious concern was Miami. The driving force was insurance cover and where it wasn’t in place, extensive efforts by government agencies and the local population mitigated mould development. The local population and government agencies in Thailand or New Orleans had never read the guidelines so other issues are obvious.
The majority of support in the writing of the S500 & S520 came from the manufacturers of equipment and chemicals and while their standards are reasonable, they obviously revolve around the use of their products and these were not available in Thailand or New Orleans yet no mold was found?
One of the most serious allegation I made in the Carlisle audits (UK) was of “Fraud or Incompetence”.
see http://www.disasteradvice.org/FraudorIncompetence/tabid/361/Default.aspx
In this survey of an area where 1200 homes were affected by substantial flooding it took over 14 months to dry some buildings. Contractors complied with various standards and contract requirements but were seen to be acting either fraudulently or with total incompetence.
Loss adjusters are in my opinion one of the major points of focus for subrogation as they invariably have no training in disaster recovery or restoration yet dictate to contractors what can or can’t be done, more interestingly their time line to report or even attending site is usually a fundamental flaw in the economic settlement of the water damage claim. Every hour of delay before works are authorised causes exponential increase in damage as uncontrolled evaporation causes preventable secondary damage. Often it takes loss adjusters (public adjusters) days and even weeks to get to a claim and that can extend to months in wide area/scale claims.
With regard to medical evidence in mold claims there is an increasing science that can identify mold antigens in the blood which can pinpoint the mold type and compare to that which is found in the problem property. More importantly many of the protocols used to identify mold growth utilise the established culture growth method. This is where a sampling technique pulls air into the equipment over a culture dish. A few days later the CFUs colony forming units are counted and speciated, often against ambient or background levels.
While this historic evaluation had a place in measuring growth potential it has almost no place in the litigation or evidence gathering for litigation. It would be presumed that by the time a lawyer gets involved in a mold case that the building would be dry and that the conditions suitable for mould growth would not be present. Therefore any mold sampling or evidence gathering would usually be expected to prove negative as humidity levels would prevent mould growth or perhaps contractors had wrongly (illegally) used a fungicide. This would therefore exclude the presence of non viable mold spores which are recognised as being a greater health concern than viable collection. Dead mold can be identified by different techniques such as PCR Polymerised Chain reaction.
Restoration based contractors invariably fail to provide the site with technical expertise with regard to water damage restoration and fail to maximise environmental conditions in favour of utilising rental equipment which provides greater profit but less effectiveness. Contractors usually fail to make accurate triage assessments where uneconomic restoration is balanced against time line and potential secondary damage effects. Building based restoration contractors invariably maximise scope drift where replacement is seen as more profitable than drying or restoration. Mould and extended damage is in my opinion, usually attributable (excepting Hurricane type events) to poor liaison or incompetence of loss adjusters, contractors or call centre management.