When a lift or escalator is caught up in an insurance claim — a flooded pit, fire in the machine room, a car struck in a loading dock, vandalism, or a repair quotation the insurer doubts — the adjuster needs someone who can say what was damaged, what caused it, what it will genuinely cost to put right, and what was already worn out before the event. We provide that report for loss adjusters, insurers, brokers and building owners across Australia. We do not repair lifts and we take no commission from anyone who does, so the report is ours alone.
From time to time Vertical Transportation systems may be subject to an insurance claim of some type. TLC provides guidance for insurance companies, building managers, body corporates, or anyone involved in a Vertical Transportation occurrence, dispute, or even litigation.
Whether the situation is vandalism, an Act of God, misuse, or an accident, there will be a strong likelihood that the claim or dispute will have a technical component that requires an unbiased perspective.
An insurance claim needs a detailed, conclusive analysis before the cost can be adjusted. Our goal is to ensure our clients are receiving impartial unbiased advice about any claim or dispute. Our team of independent qualified consultants will review insurance claims/disputes at a technical level and then provide impartial, realistic, practical, and reliable advice, recommendations, and guidance in the form of a comprehensive report including our findings and recommendations.
Another valuable component of our insurance claim review is to ensure that our clients are receiving reasonable value for any quoted repair work and the works are performed according to best practices and industry standards. Our team can manage everything from reviewing/signing off the final scope to performing a thorough inspection of the transportation system once the work has been completed.
Recent claim assessments
Mondrian Gold Coast — water ingress to the lift pits and machine room, reported for the loss adjuster and insurer.
Oracle complex, Broadbeach — damage assessment and contractor quotation review for the loss adjuster.
Ballina RSL Club — impact damage to an escalator, with the replacement scoped and tendered after the claim.
Insurance matters involving lifts turn on technical questions that neither the owner nor the insurer is usually equipped to settle: what actually failed, why it failed, whether the damage claimed is consistent with that cause, what the reasonable scope of reinstatement is, and where betterment begins. Where those questions are contested, or where the sums are large enough that they will be, an independent assessment is what moves the matter forward.
We are engaged by owners, by strata and building managers, by loss adjusters and by legal advisers. What does not change is the work: we look at the equipment and the evidence and report what we find.
In our experience three things hold lift claims up more than anything else. The first is a scope written by the party who will carry out the work, which makes it very difficult for anyone to test. The second is an absence of records - no maintenance history, no commissioning documents, nothing to establish the condition before the event. The third is obsolescence colliding with the claim: the equipment cannot be reinstated as it was because the parts no longer exist, and nobody has decided how that is handled.
All three are addressable, and all three are easier to address early than after positions have hardened.
Most lift claims we see fall into a few patterns. Water entering a pit or a shaft, whether from a burst service, a storm or firefighting. Fire and smoke affecting the machine room, the controller or the shaft. Impact damage to doors, entrances and car interiors, often in goods lifts and loading docks. Electrical events affecting the drive and control equipment. Each has its own signature and its own argument about what was already failing before the event.
A written technical report setting out what we inspected, what we found, the conclusions we draw and the basis for them, with the reinstatement scope described so it can be priced independently. Where we cannot reach a conclusion on the evidence available, we say that and say what further evidence would settle it. We do not write to a brief, and we say the same thing whoever engaged us.