One of RIA’s top priorities is to keep the industry, and its members, abreast of issues that will impact their businesses. RIA sends out alerts, publishes a monthly magazine and a weekly e-newsletter to educate members and others in the insurance restoration industry, holds webinars, sponsors conferences, courses and a convention and travels to various industry events to meet with members face-to-face.

A recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Florida should have a positive effect on restoration contractors who also serve as general contractors. In Trinidad v. Florida Peninsula insurance Company, the Supreme Court said,  “…we hold that an insurer’s required payment under a replacement cost policy includes overhead and profit, where the insured is reasonably likely to need a general contractor for the repairs, because the insured would be required to pay costs for a general contractor’s overhead and profit for the completion of repairs in the same way the insured would have to pay other replacement costs he or she is reasonably likely to incur in repairing the property…”

The ruling also clearly outlines what is considered overhead and profit.

This ruling sets a positive precedent for other cases where insurers are challenging the need to pay profit and overhead to restoration contractors serving as general contractors. It also gives restorers a response to adjusters who say, “We don’t pay overhead and profit.” 

RIA also provides information through its extensive Technical Library, which houses over 1,600 technical articles and white papers on a wide range of topics. The information comes from C&R magazine articles, papers written by RIA certificants and technical bulletins by RIA’s former technical advisors. Anyone can access an executive summary of the articles, but full articles are available for free only to RIA members. 

RIA also seeks to highlight the outstanding work of restoration contractors through its Phoenix Awards Program. The Phoenix Awards are open to anyone working in the restoration industry and winners are selected in two categories: Innovation in Restoration and Innovation in Reconstruction. Entries are judged on problem-solving, the amount of cost savings for the owner/insurer and the innovative procedures used as part of the project. A panel of industry professionals selects the winners.

The deadline for entries is December 16, 2013 and details are available on the RIA website at restorationindustry.org. The awards will be presented at the 2014 RIA Convention in Orlando, Florida.

PIC Update

RIA serves as the meeting planner for the Property Industry Conference, and the next meeting will be held on Monday, November 18, 2013 in Jacksonville, FL at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville from 1-4 p.m. The focus is using social media as part of the claims process.

The meeting is scheduled before the PLRB Large Loss Conference and Ellen Carney of Forrester Research will be the keynote speaker. Panelists include John Langowski, VP of Claims for United Property & Casualty; Jeff Vanderpool, senior vice president and chief claims officer for Sunshine State Insurance; and Teresa Heller, VP of Claims for American Integrity. Visit www.propertyindustryconference.org for more details or to register.