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dimanche 31 août 2014

The Science Of Insurance Archaeology

By Harriet Porter


Many organizations have been through a rough patch in the last few years due to litigation resulting from policy documents issued years ago. However, since this is in the past, these documents bearing information about brokers and policies are not available. The unavailability of the documents may cost the company millions in litigation fees. The only way to avoid this is insurance archaeology.

These law suits are mostly based on products which were made decades ago and turned out to be harmful. Most of these cases are from asbestos based compounds and so the environment. Asbestos has been found to be harmful to human beings over time. This information was not previously known until a recent scientific study. Companies that made these products are then subject to law suits over the same. When this happens, the old policy documents have to be located.

The only way to locate these documents is through insurance archaeologists. They do whatever needs to be done to find any possible information that could lead to the location of the documents. Sometime the information is in tiny bits and they have to gather more of it to complete the puzzle. Regardless of all the effort, the documents may not be located at all. This is because maintenance of these policies has not been easy over the years.

Mergers and acquisitions have characterized the last few decades. The incorporated companies may lose most of their documents during this process. Relocation and downsizing also cost the companies these files. In addition, restructuring and file purging has also contributed. Another blame factor is the 1999 Millennium bomb where organizations sought to erase all their old documents.

The insurer will demand copies of the policy documents when faced with a probable expensive claim. Availability of the real policy documents goes a long way in avoiding long and expensive coverage litigation. Organizations should take the initiative to search for and put in order past policy documents and secondary evidence of coverage by the insurer. When there are no cases, you do not have to worry about the old policies. When such cases arise however, the company needs to have evidence that the policy existed n the first place.

Past policy documents are not only necessary for lawsuits. When trying to acquire another company or merging with another, be sure to look at their old policies. This will form you what exactly you are likely to face in the future. It is because legally the new owners of a company not only get their assets but their liabilities are transferred as well. This informs your decision, because the company may be either adding more assets or taking them away in the long run.

Insurance archaeologists carry many work titles as they work as detectives, excavators and people who study history. In the course of their work, they have to track past brokers as well as employees. Sometimes when they are deceased they have to look for their descendants and interview them. Archaeologists also have to read through past accounting documents as ell government archives.

When you have been in business for many years and you cannot locate all your files it would be best to hire insurance archaeologists. This is going to save you millions of money in litigation. Besides, when undergoing a merger or acquisition let an archaeologist review the old policies of the target company. This will go a long way to protect your company from possible future law suits.




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