How To Survive Commercial Property Large Loss

1/29/2021 (Permalink)

How to Survive Large Loss

Large commercial property loss is a facility manager’s nightmare. The sudden occurrence of water damage from a burst pipe, the horror of a fire, the devastation from a tornado causes your business and operations to cease. How do you survive such a large, catastrophic property loss? Will you be able to stay in business? How will you serve your customers? What happens to your employees?

SERVPRO is your large loss expert. With over 50 years of experience in large commercial loss from catastrophic weather, fires, and water damage, we’ve amassed knowledge, equipment, and project management techniques that have helped thousands of businesses survive large loss. We can help you, too.

What is Large Loss, and Why Does it Matter?

Large loss can be defined by the dollar amount of the claim (over $50,000), the facility size, the square footage of the building affected, or the number of floors affected by the loss.

Large loss affects any facility in any industry including hospitality, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, property management, and schools. Large loss can demolish a mom & pop shop or devastate a global corporate operation by halting operations, displacing occupants, and threatening to shut down your business. No one is exempt from the threat of large loss, but there are strategies you can employ to ensure business continuity and swift recovery. Knowing and executing these strategies is vital to surviving large commercial property loss.

How to Prepare for Large Loss 

In order to survive a large commercial property loss from fire, storm, or water damage, pre-planning is paramount. Take advantage of SERVPRO's Emergency Ready Profile which includes:

Emergency Ready Profile: SERVPRO will work with you to create an Emergency Ready Profile for your unique property. This plan allows us to gather advanced knowledge before disaster strikes so that our team is ready to work with your team to mitigate damage quickly and efficiently.

Pre-disaster walk through consultation:  Your SERVPRO representative will visit your facility and identify any areas of vulnerability as well as gain familiarity with ‘the lay of the land’ to speed response and recovery maneuvers.

Priority Response: As an Emergency Ready Profile (ERP) Client, you are our priority in the event of a wide-spread weather event. We’ll have a crew on site within 2 hours of your call (usually sooner than that). Catastrophic weather affects large populations - you want to be first in line to begin mitigation and repairs. We assure local and accessible project management with your SERVPRO contact plus the added capacity of equipment and manpower availability during a time when everyone is frantic to secure restoration services.

How to Survive a Large Loss:

When the inevitable, devastating large loss occurs, what actually happens? How does SERVPRO ensure the survival of your business operations? Each loss is different owing to the type of property disaster (water damage, fire and smoke damage, hurricane and wind damage) and the industry affected. 

When you call SERVPRO, a project manager will return your call promptly and have a crew on-site within 2 hours or less. It’s vital to call SERVPRO right away to avoid costly delays from further, secondary damage.

 An assessment will be made; the first actions will be the safety of occupants and security of your property. SERVPRO’s safety assessment and emergency response can include: boarding up areas exposed by fire or wind damage such as walls, doors, and windows. SERVPRO can also erect security fencing to protect against injuries or intruders.

Next, SERVPRO will initiate emergency mitigation. In the case of large loss water damage, we’ll employ large scale drying response techniques with drying equipment. Choosing SERVPRO to mitigate your large loss means that you have access to our huge capacity and selection of water mitigation equipment to extract large volumes of water and dry any type of structure. 

SERVPRO will help you with business continuity during the loss by rerouting occupants and customers safely and arranging removal and recovery of affected contents. Should you need temporary storage of equipment or contents, we can assist with arrangements. Temporary operations and office space can be secured so that you can continue to service your valuable customers during the disruption.

Meanwhile, we’re working with your insurance adjuster to expedite your claim. Your project manager will be onsite frequently with support staff to manage the large loss details. While the mitigation is proceeding, plans for reconstruction are being made and those materials and trades such as electrical, drywall, and plumbing are arranged for you. Building permits will be obtained on your behalf so that rebuilding can begin quickly.

As a SERVPRO ERP Client, you and other key decision-makers can all be kept in the loop. Communication is integral to surviving large commercial property loss and SERVPRO has the tools to accomplish transparent communication with you.

More Than Just Surviving Large Loss

Commercial large loss is overwhelming, but with SERVPRO as your strategic large loss partner, you have pre-planning resources to avoid or minimize damage, in-loss response and resources, and our expert coaching and support along the way. Many business owners have been enriched by the relationship with SERVPRO during a large loss and emerge with renewed business vigor and success. Don’t just survive large loss - thrive!

Prepare to Survive and Thrive!

We sincerely hope that you never experience a commercial large loss but unfortunately, it’s not usually “if”, it’s “when”. Prepare to survive, prepare to thrive with SERVPRO by securing your Emergency Ready Profile. Give us a call or contact us today to get started.