Insurance Valuation Services
We offer a variety of insurance valuation services for insurers and insured on plant and machinery, agricultural, commercial, industrial or residential properties ranging from determining the value at which to insure assets, performing a policy audit and consulting on the structure of the policy, conducting on-site risk surveys, assessing the loss, adjudicating the tender process and project management of the replacement or reconstruction of the property or asset.
Our Services Include
Insurance Policy Audit
Often your insurance policy is not up-to-date with new assets you acquired or you think you are correctly insured for certain incidents while you are not.
For example, if your mobile smart phone or laptop is not insured as an “all risk” electronic item, then your insurer is not obliged to pay-out a claim when your laptop is stolen (e.g. at the gym or shopping centre) or breaks away from the home or office address specified in your policy. If you have electronic equipment that is included in a bulk contents amount on the policy, the insurer is not required to pay-out your claim in the case of theft as it is not specified.
Policy structuring is as important as the amount for which you are insured. How is your policy structured? Contact us >
Insurance Valuation
Insurance valuations, also known as the Value at Risk (VaR), can be determined for both immovable (fixed buildings, property etc.) and movable (furniture, vehicles, electronics, etc.) assets. VaR is essentially the value at which to insure your property or your vehicle and other movable assets in the case of loss.
For example, this can be anything from a fire or earthquake to theft and damage. Insurers work on the principle of like-for-like and aim to place you in the same financial position you were in directly before the loss incident occurred. This involves determining the worst loss expected over a target horizon within a given confidence interval.
Read the following articles about Value at Risk:
The insurance process when taking out a policy or claiming >
On-site Risk Surveying
Being insured for the correct risks given the context or environment of your immovable (fixed buildings, property) or movable assets, is as important as being insured for the correct amount. A risk survey determines the most likely risks to be insured against for your assets.
Often, if you read your insurance policy, you are not adequately insured for the type of risks specific to your property (location, use) and assets. Although it is common knowledge that one needs cover for fire, theft etc. it is very important how the theft section is specified in your policy. This will determine if the insurer pays-out your claim.
For example, if you had an outbuilding insured but you did not specify the copper cables attached and running to the building, you might not be adequately covered for theft. In another example, there might be several developments in your area and the storm water for these can be channelled into a passing river. Since you are covered for the 50-year or even 100-year flood line, you and your insurer might think that you are adequately insured. However, these new developments have added to the amount of water flowing in the river and can therefore change the exponential effect during a rainy season and the river could exceed that flood line.
Conducting a physical on-site risk survey is important in determining how to structure your policy and for what risks you need to be specifically insured
We can consult on accurately structuring your insurance policy for your specific risks. Contact us to assist >
Assessment of Loss
When an incident occurs, the extent of damage or loss needs to be assessed for claim purposes.
In this process an assessor is sent out to assess the loss at the property or, in the case of movable assets such as a vehicle, to a vehicle compound. A report is compiled advising on the extent of loss suffered by the insured which is communicated to the insurer.
Are you in need of an accurate assessment? We take extra measures to ensure our assessments are more accurate than most. Read how we measure accurately >
Tender Adjudication
After AoL, the next step is to obtain quotes from reputable suppliers and service providers to replace the loss.
This part of the process includes the scoping of requirements that forms the basis on which the suppliers and/or service providers are to tender. Given the specificity of the requirements, the received quotes are more readily a like-for-like comparison, although sometimes different interpretations are made by the builders/service providers. This is cleared with them and the analysis then recommends the most suitable candidate.
Trust us as specialist valuers to assist with the quoting and adjudication process.Contact us >
Project Management
Once the tender is awarded, the successful candidate starts with the project of repairing and replacing the assets concerned.
For example, a builder would start demolishing and carting away debris in the case of a fire.
We act as project managers with regular site inspections and compiling progress reports on the actual project progress and observed quality. In addition, progress payment is managed for pay-out (progress payments) to the supplier/service provider. During this process the insured can request changes, however, the increase in costs will be for their own account.
For example, if part of the building burnt down it is possible to install aluminium windows instead of timber, however, if there is an increase in cost from the original scope, the difference will be for the insured’s account. This is a convenience and flexibility factor that is fair and increases satisfaction for the client since although there is a possible increase in cost, the overall saving will be more as it would have been in a normal scenario, since it forms part of the overall reconstruction project and cost efficiencies can be passed onto the client.
