Large and complex losses that need sequencing

When a normal restoration job becomes a project

Most water and fire losses are one building, one owner, one crew, one sequence. A large loss is different in kind, not just in size.

A burst riser in a three-story apartment building affects a dozen units with a dozen different tenants, a body corporate, and a building manager. A commercial water loss involves business interruption coverage, tenant improvements owned by someone other than the landlord, and stock that has to be triaged. A neighborhood-scale flood or fire means every contractor in the metro is committed at once, and adjusters are working hundreds of files.

What breaks these jobs is almost never the technical work. It is sequencing, communication and documentation across parties who do not otherwise talk to each other.

The order that matters

Make safe. Utilities isolated, structure assessed, hazards controlled. On fire losses this includes securing the building; on winter losses it includes temporary heat so the pipes do not add a second claim.

Assess and document, comprehensively, before demolition. On a multi-party loss the documentation is the project. Room-by-room photography, moisture mapping, a contents inventory per unit, and a scope that separates emergency mitigation from reconstruction because carriers usually approve them separately.

Emergency mitigation. Extraction, controlled demolition of unsalvageable material, and drying started within the 24 to 48 hour mold window. This phase is time-critical and does not wait for a full claim decision.

Contents pack-out. Inventoried, photographed, removed, cleaned and stored. Doing this properly is what makes a contents claim payable.

Stabilize, then rebuild. Only once moisture readings are at dry standard.

Colorado's large-loss drivers

Wildfire. Not just burned structures. The December 2021 Marshall Fire showed how many standing homes in Superior and Louisville needed extensive smoke and ash remediation despite never catching fire. That work is substantial and is regularly underestimated in first-pass claims.

Regional flooding. The September 2013 Front Range floods hit Boulder, Larimer and Weld counties simultaneously. The constraint in an event like that is not technique, it is capacity — every crew and every adjuster is committed, and the properties that get worked first are the ones that were documented and reported first.

Hail. Widespread hail events generate thousands of simultaneous claims across the metro, with the same capacity problem and a much longer tail of delayed roof leaks. See storm damage.

Multi-unit water. The most common large loss and the least dramatic. A single failed supply line on an upper floor at 3 a.m. can affect every unit in the stack below it.

What to expect on cost and time

Large losses are priced from the same line-item rates as small ones — labor per hour, equipment per unit per day, antimicrobial per square foot. There is no separate large-loss multiplier. The total is larger because the counts are larger and the duration is longer.

Timelines stretch because of dependencies, not because anyone is slow. Structural engineering reports, permits, insurer approvals and long-lead materials each add weeks. Anyone giving you a firm completion date before the structure has been assessed is guessing.

Related: fire damage restoration, flood cleanup and the insurance claims guide.