If a storm, fire or vandalism strikes your agency, you want to receive full value for the damage in a claim. But can PDRMA accurately reflect the value of your property in the information it provides to its reinsurers?

The last membership-wide appraisal was 14 years ago, and the insurance industry recommends doing property appraisals at least every five years. So PDRMA brought in Duff & Phelps, a property appraisal company, and had two PDRMA member agency’s pilot the process that will update all members’ Total Insurable Value. The goal is to complete all appraisals for the 2021 renewal process.

Earlier this year, Lisle Park District participated in a Duff & Phelps pilot appraisal, and it was a direct and easy process. “It was very straightforward,” explains Aaron Cerutti, Superintendent of Parks and Facilities, Lisle Park District. “It took about four days (Note: Larger agencies may require more time) for the Duff & Phelps team to visit all our facilities and some of our parks. We didn’t need to be with the appraiser all the time; we just took him to the areas he needed to access.”

Post appraisal follow-up work was minimal for the agency as well. “The Duff & Phelps team just asked us to provide some dates and technical specifications on a few sites to forward on to the appraiser. The whole process was smooth, and the appraiser was efficient — the hardest part was solving the problem that many of the addresses or descriptions of our sites didn’t match what we currently call them.”

Equipment appraisal was even easier, Cerutti reports, with no fieldwork. The appraisers contacted the agency’s Superintendent of Finance to estimate the value of assets and equipment based on PDRMA’s AssetWORKS program. (Note: If your agency does not use AssetWORKS, determining values may require more work.)

“The process is a great idea,” comments Cerutti. “It ensures your current assets are up to date and correctly identified in terms of location and monetary value in today’s market — in the unfortunate case of a loss.”

He advises members to send someone with the appraiser who has extensive knowledge of your agency’s infrastructure and is familiar with the site’s major maintenance, operations and repairs. “Some of the information needed during the process is technical, and it’s easier and quicker if the person with the appraiser has the knowledge and access to that information on site at the facility or can easily get it.”

PDRMA Risk Management Services will soon be collecting contact information from members to provide to Duff & Phelps, which will begin scheduling the appraisals. The process will include these property classifications:

1. All buildings over $10,000.
   
2. Land improvements — Property in the Open.
   Duff & Phelps will account for items greater than $10,000. For these categories, the team will collect descriptive information to determine replacement costs and report by site. 
3. Personal property — Content Modeling Method.
   Duff & Phelps will determine a value for your contents based on inventories of similar occupancies. The appraiser will apply a cost per square foot for each occupancy and adjust that value based on your facilities’ density and quality. This is a cost-effective methodology to determine a reasonable replacement cost in absence of a physical inventory.  

Click here to download PDRMA’s Appraisal FAQ for more information about the Duff & Phelps appraisal.