Insurance claim filed for 'biohazard cleanup, undisclosed substance'

An insurance broker who handled the policy in question disclosed the existence of the claim in a 2018 statement to a regional investigator, after retiring from the firm. The claim documents themselves were obtained subsequently through an unrelated discovery process. Names of the claimant principals have been redacted in the available copies.

The claim is a standard commercial reimbursement filing, with one notable omission and one notable inclusion. The omission is the worksite address, which is replaced with a parcel number that maps to a municipal facility in central Varginha. The inclusion is the description of the substance requiring cleanup, which the contractor described as "unidentified organic residue" — a phrase that does not appear in the contractor's other filings before or after.

The reimbursement requested is for specialized biohazard remediation services, including disposable PPE for a four-person crew, sealed waste containers, and decontamination of two adjacent rooms.

The broker stated, in his disclosure, that biohazard claims of this size were normally subject to mandatory on-site inspection by an adjuster before settlement. This claim was settled in full without inspection, on the basis of a written authorization from a senior underwriter. The senior underwriter has since died and the firm has merged twice.