TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Airport and Nagico don't reach agreement

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Guess it's up to the judge now.

Imagine that.

The claim is "unsubstantiated"?? I guess a hurricane is not worthy of damage like they sustained?

Correct and the Airport is who messed up. The Judge will lead more towards Nagico than the Airport.

“fully quantified and documented”

Seems as if the airport did not provide the requested documentation? One has to wonder what "profit loss" is based upon? Previous years passenger numbers, or the reality of what would occur after a hurricane.? Even if the airport had been left unscathed, the rest of the island does not have the infrastructure to support visitors. The number of flights and passengers would have reduced, and not the same revenue.

Are they just trying to claim up to the limit they insured, or ACTUAL costs?

Lesley--what is it that the airport did not do correctly? The insurance company says that they didn't substantiate the loss. What does that mean? They didn't prove the cost to repair?

The way I read it is the insurance wants a detailed account of the actual cost/estimate of repairs from the contractors that will do the work under the proper line item lists. Makes sense to me that they would want that and not just a blanket claim. Same goes for the loss of revenue coverage. Past records to substantiate the claim need to be shown to justify the claim..

Along the lines that Scubaman said.

I don't understand, 10 months later, why they can't provide the insurance company with that. They just made up numbers??

They just dragged their feet months after the two Hurricanes. The Judge will pass judgement in favour of Nagico.

It's very concerning to me that they won't be able to rebuild as they should, if the judge rules in favor of the insurance company.

The problem is not being able to rebuild as how it was before. Nagico advanced them 25,000,000.00 but they drag their feet with the roof repairs and Maria came and totally damaged everything inside. They should have started the roof repairs immediately after Imra ; hence protecting the inside completely. Plus they had lots of money on their own before the Hurricane in their Bank Account. Poor bad Management on the Airport side.

Having spent many years as an investigator for an international insurance company-I note the airport had a duty to mitigate the loss by taking immediate action to prevent further damage. Lesley is right on the money with the airport dragging their feet. The building was left open to the elements allowing further water damage and eventually mold. The mitigate clause is standard language in property insurance policy's. The roof needed to be closed to the weather-NAGICO will use this clause in their defense before the court. Insurance companies will pay for mitigation expense. I suspect NAGICO has had a forensic accountant combing the airport books to show the loss of use and profits have been inflated-that's assuming the airport books were in good order. It will be interesting to see the courts ruling in this case.

Yes Mr. John Hill you are very correct.

You are exactly right! It will be the judge deciding this case and that's a good thing.

I will not be surprised to see the judge ruling fully on the side of the airport authority.

Nagico can claim all they want about mitigation but with both major hurricanes happening in the span of 10 days and the majority of damages were caused by Irma, to include, severe wind, water and salt damage from hurricane Irma, with terminal equipment destroyed and about 80% of it's roof damaged. There was also damage to many of the support buildings, all of the exterior fencing, and a host of support equipment. Mitigation doesn't happen in a vacuum and the exigent circumstances favor the airport's case.

The volume of public information that is readily available supports the claims being made by the SXM Airport Authority. Just the issue of loss of revenue is very easily researched by looking at the airport's own website. There are annual reports on their website for the years 2006 through 2015 and they include audited financial statements for each year. I can understand that neither 2016 or 2017 has been posted as there has probably been Acts of God that have prevented their completion. -- The Departure Fee for International travelers is one of the larger sources of revenue for the airport. The Airport Authority gets to keep 100% of all departure fees received. Rounding off numlbers and being conservative in estimates, there would have been more than 1.5 million international passengers paying the $30 departure fee, generating $45 million in operating revenue. Based on the published listing that international passenger travel is down by at least 70% that means there would be a loss of expected revenue of $31.5 million. The airport is requesting less in compensation.

Why should the airport settle for Nagico's offer? As was discussed recently on a prior thread, rebuilding a major loss normally takes longer and costs more than new construction.

The airport is rebuilding, maybe not as fast as some would want, but maybe their expectations are unrealistic. I've seen it stated that roof repairs should have started immediately after Irma but there was another major hurricane bearing down on the island. There were not the necessary supplies or workers to facilitate the needed repairs in that 10 day period.

Putting away my soapbox.

Very good assessment of the situation.

I had a measly $1000 claim refused by Nagico after the hurricane. I was evacuated after the storm and left our place with some flooding. I called Nagico for days from the states but couldn't get through because the phone lines were down. Finally I reached them and I told them I have been evacuated and didn't know the extent of the damage until I returned and that may be a couple of months. I was told that was no problem and to file my claim when I returned, Well I did and my claim was rejected because I didn't file the claim before 30 days. It was longer than 30 days before they were open for business and had phone service but that didn't matter. They have so many claims that they are trying to reject as many claims as possible and are taking forever to pay. People with valid claims are still waiting for payments. They want you to pay your premiums and on time but when you have a claim, there is always a problem Insurance companies are the same everywhere.

Amen to that! We got paid about 1/3 of our claim for our hurricane damage, here in Florida.

We were settled very good and speedy by Nagico. Also we filed for our Italian friends and it was settled promptly .

Did you finally get a roof when you returned from Sxm?

Jeepers--if that is addressed to me, yes, finally got our roof replaced..

It appears the Airport simply wants the insurer to write a cheque without any supporting documents....not sure that they have not supplied some documentation but obviously not enough. It is the responsibility of the insured (Airport) to prove their loss and to prove that the loss is covered under the insurance contract. If the airport wants to do alterations to improve what was already there than that is going to and need to be paid outside of the insurance contract. If those two lines are being blurred could be the reason why there is the holdup. JMHO