On Site

How many insurance claims people are familiar with the term “Clerk of the Works?” For those who aren’t, it’s a British term and denotes a role that is primarily intended to represent the interests of the client in a construction project. The job of a British Clerk of the Works is to ensure that the quality of both materials and workmanship are in accordance with the design information, specifications and engineering drawings. This type of clerk is the most highly qualified non-commissioned tradesperson in the Royal Engineers.

We don’t really use ‘Clerks of the Works’ in Canada in this capacity, but we do have site control clerks. The site clerk role is narrower than the scope of role of the British Clerk of the Works, but many of the tasks are similar.

Pure site clerking is a role often overlooked as a valuable component of loss adjusting and claims cost containment efforts.

The use of a site clerk on a loss site provides a real time record of the activities of contractors or the policyholder following a loss event for which insurance is claimed. It is particularly useful where emergency work is being performed on a time and material basis and where no other cost controls exist. It can also be useful for lump sum restorations.

The logs and photographs kept by the clerk allow the adjuster or claim handler to look at the conditions of the loss site by the hour. Typically, the clerk records the ongoing results of tear-outs by recording evidence of the original observed conditions and what is revealed during removals. The logs record all personnel on the site at any given time, the nature and quantity of equipment deployed, contents and materials removed or delivered, weather conditions or other site conditions which may delay, impede or halt work altogether.

Without this information, there is no means to validate if the charges or losses claimed are justifiable. When the claimant, policyholder, or other service provider is aware there are no on-site monitoring, errors or cost exaggerations can easily materialize.

But there are other equally important benefits to deploying a site clerk. Here are a few;

• Clerking a loss site monitors the progress of the work on an hourly basis – allowing the adjuster to determine if more project acceleration is necessary;

• Monitoring identifies delays, such as weather events, power outages, water shortages, delivery issues or any other factor that might impact the ability of the contractors to complete work on a timely basis;

• With real time monitoring issues such as site conflicts are identified – as sometimes occurs with cross-trades bumping into one another which might reveal a lack of project management – all important information for an adjuster;

• Real time monitoring records head-counts of general contractors, sub-contractors and consultants who are on the site at any given time. This can benefit these contractors where it’s own personnel have not kept clean activity records and enables the adjuster to cross reference time and materials charged against time & materials recorded;

• Equipment and machinery deployed is identified and confirmed to be in use or not in use. Sometime contractors do not realize non-utilized equipment is not chargeable to the job – and at least such information allows the adjuster to address such charges;

• A real time presence of a site clerk records removals, such as debris (how many loads, size of disposal vehicles, dumpster or bins), contents and salvageable items;

• Construction materials delivered to the site, but not used are also recorded to ensure an accurate material count at the end of the emergency work;

• Site conditions are recorded and in the event further damage is discovered or claimed, how such damage might have resulted and if its loss related;

• The site clerk’s records provide daily evidence and can serve to mediate invoicing conflicts, or conflicts with a policyholder regarding conditions that have generated time element losses associated with outages and whether such time is justifiable support for such business and extra expense loss claims;

Many contractors and consultants serving the insurance industry have a symbiotic relationship with the companies and their adjusters. Clearly they do not want conflicts with their customers. In our experience on remediation jobs of significance, where dozens of workers are deployed, it is often difficult to verify if the time and material tracking maintained by the service provider issued after the event is accurate. When a site clerk is present, contractors are interested in comparing data sets to verify the accuracy of their own information before invoicing, and this helps loss adjusters to make final recommendations for loss payments much easier and far more reliable.

Even the mere presence of a clerk on the site can serve to curtail over-claiming, because no one can really be sure what the clerk has observed or what information was captured. It’s like putting a police car on the side of the highway – it doesn’t need a policeman in it to slow down traffic.

Colin McCleary is a Senior Site Clerk with EllisDon Consulting and Project Management.