Water Damage
Water damage–including leaks and burst pipes or mold and mildew in the aftermath—can wreak serious havoc on your commercial business and property operations. Plumbing leaks are insidious. They can lurk behind walls, pour from failed equipment like water heaters, or seep under a foundation, causing extensive damage to your structure or business inventory.
If you’ve submitted a valid claim to your commercial insurance carrier and now you’re dealing with insurance not paying, claims denied, or requests for mountains of documentation to support the claim, you’re frustrated and angry. You need a first-party claims attorney—a specialist commercial insurance lawyer—if your insurer is demonstrating bad faith behaviors.
Why Does Your Business Have a Commercial Insurance Policy?
That’s an easy question to answer. You wanted to avoid any potential financial problems involved when an emergency strikes.
You’ve probably paid your commercial insurance policy premiums for years. Perhaps you’ve never filed a commercial property insurance claim before.
After you submit a covered event claim to your insurance carrier, it’s distressing to learn that the provider may use a policy provision to avoid paying your water damage claim.
You purchased commercial insurance to protect your assets and property from water damage, including plumbing breaks or other forms of water damage. You always expected that, if you needed it, the insurance company would quickly acknowledge, investigate, and pay your claim.
You never expected that the insurer would stall payment of the claim or try to negotiate a lower amount to settle the claim.
If you’re asking, “Is my insurer acting in bad faith?” it probably is. Making the commercial insurance carrier make good on its previous promises may require the help of a qualified commercial water damage claims attorney.
Business Recovery after Commercial Water Damage
If your commercial property has been affected by a water damage claim, you know how important it is to thoroughly repair the damage to avoid future issues, including:
- Wall damage
- Business interruption
- Floor damage
- Electrical damage or damage to electrical equipment
- Business inventory damage or loss
- Employee personal property damage or loss
- Mold or mildew
- Damage to business records or files
- Damage to furnishings
How Does an Undervalued, Delayed, or Denied Commercial Water Damage Claim Affect Your Business?
When a commercial water damage claim is undervalued, delayed or denied, your business may suffer the cost of shouldering extensive repairs, lost inventory, lost profits, financial hardship, and even future damage from the loss of business reputation.
Excessive delay in acknowledging, investigating, evaluating, and paying your valid claim as covered by your policy may constitute bad faith.
Insurance companies owe their commercial customers a legal duty. The insurer may promptly evaluate and pay your commercial water damage claims. If you’re faced with an insurance company not paying your valid claims, you need a water damage attorney to represent your interests.
Experienced Texas Water Damage Claim Attorneys
The Mindiola Law Firm, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is familiar with all of the tactics bad faith insurance companies use to delay or completely avoid paying property damage claims. Even though your business has paid your premiums on time and as agreed, and your submitted claim is within your policy coverage, an insurance company may decide to delay or completely deny the claim.
As a financially responsible business owner, you have commercial insurance to protect your commercial enterprise. Although it is in your best interests to repair water damage as soon as you find it, the damage to your property or properties may be extensive.
Regardless of the size of your claim or claims, your insurance company might use intimidating or obscure legal language to deny your claim.
When you think about it, the insurer is actually denying your business one of its most valuable assets—time. By dragging out the time it takes to pay your claim, the water damage to your commercial property may worsen. Time is money. The time value of your claim value is high.
Contact an Experienced Houston Water Damage Law Firm
Our experienced water damage attorneys will challenge your insurer by hiring independent investigators from our network of experts. These experts will evaluate the business’ water damage claim and present the insurer with evidence of your coverage.
The sooner you contact our experienced Houston water damage attorneys, the better.
The commercial insurance lawyers at Mindiola Law Firm work for you. If you have submitted a plumbing-related damage claim to your commercial property and casualty insurer, and the insurer has undervalued, delayed, or denied the payment of your claim, you need experienced water damage attorneys on your side. To request an initial case evaluation, call Mindiola Law Firm at .