Ian Fulton
Practical Experience
Wide-Ranging Experience Across Variety of Industries - Ian has wide-ranging experience in the investigation, preparation, negotiation and settlement of claims with insurers, reinsurers, owners, brokers and loss adjusters. He has dealt with all types of property, construction, and business interruption claims, across a variety of industry sectors, both in the UK and around the world.
Policy Holders & their Proper Entitlement -He has more than 20-years experience as a loss adjuster, spending the majority of that time working for major loss adjusting companies on behalf of insurers. In 2002, he helped found Echelon, where his focus turned to policy holders and assisting them in obtaining their proper entitlement from claims.
Claims Account Management - Ian has been responsible for managing claims portfolios for a variety of clients and schemes.
Building Law & Contract -Ian spent 10-years in the construction industry as a quantity surveyor. This background has given him an analytical approach to problems and an expertise in formulating and analysing pricing information. His knowledge of building law and contract is important in the handling of construction claims.
Petro-chemical Experience -Ian gained invaluable experience during a 4-year period working on a UK oil refinery, seconded to the oil company for part of that time, where he was responsible for managing building and civil engineering aspects of various petro-chemical projects, including construction of piled tank bases, a treatment plant, an FCC facility, pipelines, roads, sea defences and a jetty.
Credentials
Underinsurance...& the Desire to Reinstate Differently - Compiling, presenting and negotiating claims for a variety of UK property owners, retailers, manufacturers, leisure companies, and food and drink companies, most due to fire or flood. Issues regularly encountered include an all too common frequency of underinsurance and, increasingly, the understandable desire on the insured's part to introduce changes when reinstating the property, varying from implementing a few alterations to rebuilding in a completely different format and even on a different site.
Landlord/Tenant Disputes & Statutory Authority Requirements - Other claims have involved the need to determine whether items are the responsibility of the landlord or the tenant, including items that might be statutory authority requirements, such as sprinkler systems, as this can make significant differences to the adequacy of sums insured.
Underinsurance Again! -Faced with very significant underinsurance following a major fire to a parcel distribution centre, Ian investigated the insurance proposal documents to successfully demonstrate that the Insured had intended to insure extensive hardstanding areas. This secured a 35% increase to the sum insured which, coupled with a well supported value at risk calculation, avoided the application of average.
Value at Risk Calculations - As well as being involved in the preparation and negotiation of a claim following a fire at a dockside grain storage facility, Ian was also retained by the insured to protect their interests when insurers appointed valuers to 'test' the blanket sums insured for Buildings and Machinery & Plant by carrying out value at risk exercises on an extensive sample of the insured's properties around the UK and Ireland.
Water Damage to CAR Projects -He acted for the main contractor on a claim involving water damage to a recently completed high profile sports stadium project in the UK, under construction at the time. He is currently dealing with other CAR claims, including extensive water damage on a project involving part new build/part conversion of an existing office block to hotel, retail and office accommodation.
Global Experience -Ian has worked on many property claims resulting from such catastrophes as the World Trade Centre explosion in 2001, the Asian tsunami in 2004, the flooding of Prague in 2002, and various hurricanes including Katrina, Wilma, Gilbert and Fabian, affecting the Caribbean and the USA.
Recognising Potential for Dispute - In a hurricane claim involving extensive damage to a Bermudan hotel, Ian was appointed within a few days of the loss and immediately travelled to site with the client's insurance manager for an initial 12-day period. Recognising the potential for dispute regarding the severity of structural damage to two beachfront restaurants, he obtained the agreement of the insurer's adjuster to the appointment of a mutually agreed engineer from the US.
Advantages of Early Appointment -This resulted, within a week, in securing the insurer's agreement to demolition of the restaurants by contractors already working for the insured. Ian subsequently secured the adjuster's approval to reconstruction of both restaurants, incorporating very extensive client instigated alterations, on a time and materials basis, avoiding delays that preparing a full scheme and obtaining tenders would have involved. Within 7-months of the loss, he concluded settlement of both property and business interruption claims. The property was substantially underinsured, although he was able to challenge the adjuster's value at risk calculation to reduce the effect of the proposed average calculation by around 30%.
Brought in Some Way Down the Line.... -Brought in some 8-months after the loss, as a result of concern by the owner/developer over progress of the claim, Ian was involved in compiling and presenting a multimillion dollar claim for damage to a prestigious hotel complex that was under construction and nearing completion when it was inundated by a hurricane tidal wave. He operated as part of a team incorporating the developer's construction and accounting staff, local quantity surveyors and other professionals, to capture the additional costs incurred in repairing or reconstructing previously executed work. Over an 18-month period, he worked either in London or on site for extended periods to suit the needs of the assignment, initially seeking to maximise interim payments by the Insurers and then, once remedial work was complete, compiling and presenting the claim, working closely with both US and London-based lawyers.
Non Insurance Related Recoveries -Engaged by a multinational mining corporation to investigate cause and policy coverage arising from the failure of extraction wells under construction on salt dome caverns in Portugal, Ian made a detailed analysis of technical and policy issues. Whilst there was no insurance remedy for the loss, Ian was able to advise the Client regarding pursuing possible contractual remedies to recover their loss.
Advice on Legitimacy of Pursuing a Claim - Ian was appointed by an international construction company blasting tunnels beneath an on-shore gas processing facility in Norway. Following the unsuccessful final blasting of a tunnel rock plug, adjusters representing the insurers took the view that the construction work to the tunnel itself had not been damaged and that no claim existed. Ian was asked to advise on whether there was a legitimate claim to pursue. Working closely with both London-based and Norwegian lawyers, they were able to present a case that the physical state of the tunnel had been altered and that damage had therefore occurred, and that deprivation of use comprised a physical loss.
Self Adjustment of Claim Prior to Submission - He worked for an extended period in the offices of a US pharmaceutical company carrying out the 'self adjustment' of a major products liability claim which, when presented to insurers, resulted in quantum being accepted, leaving only the issue of liability under the policy to be resolved.
Root Cause Analysis Investigation -Ian became involved on behalf of the owners of a gas-fired combined cycle power station soon after significant damage occurred to the gas turbine. He was involved at all stages in the complex root cause analysis exercise which was extremely important to the client in determining cause (from the point of view of ongoing operations) and in establishing the number of deductibles to be applied. He supplemented the client's limited insurance claim management resources, handling detailed requests for information from the insurer appointed adjusters and maintaining communications with them, and coordinating the project team to ensure the capturing of repair costs incurred by the client in reinstating the machine.
Qualifications
Diploma in Quantity Surveying (Dip QS)
Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS)
Fellow of the Association of Building Surveyors (FBEng)
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters (FCILA)
European Loss Adjusting Expert (FUEDI ELAE)
