What if it happened to you?
Canadian Plastics
Promold was lucky to escape with minimal damage, and had a good insurance package to cover its losses, but that often isn't the case. "Most processors and moldmakers are grossly underinsured," says Ti...
Promold was lucky to escape with minimal damage, and had a good insurance package to cover its losses, but that often isn’t the case. “Most processors and moldmakers are grossly underinsured,” says Tim deGroot, a plastics engineer with insurance broker Plastics Protect (Newmarket, Ont.)
“Most insurance brokers are generalists, and don’t have the technical knowledge to properly evaluate plastics businesses’ assets or potential losses,” he says.
One point to watch for, deGroot cautions, is pollution/envinronmental exclusions. In almost all policies, the client is fully or partially responsible for costs arising from monitoring and liability claims arising from emissions, seepage, etc. of pollutants from the plant.
Another ill-planned area of coverage is business interruption insurance. “You and your insurer need to know how long it will take to rebuild or resume operations, how much profit will be lost, and if customers are lost, how long it will take to recover that business,” says deGroot. In some cases with larger firms, he insures clients for up to two years of business interruption.
