We represent Indiana businesses and large-loss policyholders against insurers that delay, deny, and underpay commercial property claims — warehouses and distribution centers, manufacturing facilities, healthcare facilities, multifamily portfolios, retail centers, office buildings, agribusiness operations. We also handle catastrophic residential losses $100,000 and above (fire total losses, tornado-leveled homes, catastrophic hail and wind losses). Statewide reach from our Carmel office. No fee unless we win.
Why this is happening
Indiana sits in the heart of the Ohio Valley's severe-weather corridor. In March 2024, an EF3 tornado with 165-mph winds tore through Winchester during one of the year's largest outbreaks. In March 2025, tornadoes crossed Bartholomew County and the Gary area. In March 2026, another outbreak drove damaging hail and wind across northwest Indiana. Meanwhile, the commercial property market has softened — carriers entered 2026 with healthy margins, abundant capacity, and rates down 10 to 15 percent, and they are competing for premium again. Claim-handling discipline is not what's improved. The pattern Indiana businesses describe after a loss — delay, deny, underpay — hasn't softened with the rates, and the percentage wind/hail deductibles now common on large commercial roofs make the carrier's scope decisions matter more than ever.
You don't have to accept it. Indiana law gives commercial policyholders real leverage. Your policy is a contract, and Indiana recognizes an insurer's duty of good faith — an unfounded refusal to pay, unfounded delay, deceptive lowballing, or abuse of the claim process can expose a carrier to liability beyond the policy benefits, including punitive damages in egregious cases. Indiana also protects your time to sue: policies here generally cannot cut the suit window below two years from the date of loss. Two years still moves fast on a complex commercial loss — documentation, expert work-ups, and negotiation all take time — which is why early counsel involvement matters.
What we handle
If your damage is property-related and your insurer isn't paying what they should, we should talk.
Auto and RV supply chains — Elkhart is the RV capital of the country — steel and heavy industry across northwest Indiana, and food processing statewide concentrate high-value fire and equipment-breakdown exposure. Typical disputes: BI calculations on multi-month restoration periods, code-upgrade scope on rebuild, contents and equipment valuation haircuts, anti-concurrent-causation exclusions, smoke vs. fire attribution.
Apartment and condo portfolios across Indianapolis's growth corridors, Fort Wayne, Evansville, and South Bend face concentrated hail, wind, and fire exposure. The pattern we see: carriers low-ball portfolio-wide hail and storm claims by treating each building separately, applying per-building deductibles, and arguing 'cosmetic' damage on commercial roofs while membrane and decking damage goes unscoped.
Grain operations, food processing plants, livestock and poultry facilities, and co-op storage across rural Indiana. Disputes turn on commodity and inventory valuation, spoilage coverage after power interruption, equipment breakdown on dryers and processing lines, and structural claims on large-span buildings after wind and hail.
Hospital systems, ambulatory surgical centers, dialysis centers, medical office buildings, and long-term-care facilities across Indiana. Healthcare losses introduce code-upgrade complexity on rebuilds, Service Interruption coverage for utility outages, Spoilage coverage for pharmacy and cold-chain inventory, and Equipment Breakdown for imaging and other capital equipment.
Indianapolis sits at the Crossroads of America — the I-65 / I-70 / I-74 interchange anchors one of the country's densest distribution corridors, with major air-cargo and parcel hubs in the region. Common disputes: sprinkler-system failure attribution, large-roof hail scope, Equipment Breakdown on conveyor and racking systems, and BI calculations on 3PL operators with multiple tenants.
Strip centers, lifestyle centers, and mixed-use developments across Indianapolis, its suburban corridors, Fort Wayne, and Evansville. Disputes turn on shared-wall and common-area allocation, tenant vs. landlord coverage, lost rent for vacant tenant spaces, and BI calculations on multi-tenant buildings.
Office buildings and Class A/B commercial real estate across Indianapolis, the Carmel–Fishers north-side corridor, Fort Wayne, and Evansville. Office property disputes turn on lost rental income (BI / Rental Value), Tenant Improvement coverage, common-area allocation among tenants, and Code Upgrade coverage on rebuilds. Particularly relevant where partial losses leave portions of the building rentable.
Catastrophic residential losses $100,000 and above, accepted as a secondary band — fire total losses, tornado-leveled homes, severe hail and wind losses, water-damage total losses. The same Indiana good-faith framework and litigation posture we bring to commercial claims stands behind these cases.
Why Indiana businesses choose us
We don't represent insurance companies. Ever.
That's not a marketing line, it's a structural choice.
Policyholders only. No carrier defense work. Our entire practice is built around policyholder representation — never carriers, never adjuster panels, never insurance defense. This matters for commercial buyers because conflicts of interest are denser in commercial work (the same carriers appear across files). PPL cannot be conflicted out of your file by an existing defense relationship — we don't have any.
We work on contingency: no retainer, no hourly bills, and no fee unless we recover money for you. For larger or more complex commercial claims, we'll walk through the engagement structure on your first call.
Indiana-licensed attorneys serving commercial policyholders statewide from our Carmel office — Indianapolis and the metro counties (Marion, Hamilton, Hendricks, Johnson), Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend–Elkhart, Lafayette, Bloomington, Terre Haute, and northwest Indiana. We know how commercial property disputes move through Indiana's Commercial Courts and the Southern and Northern Districts of Indiana. Every commercial file gets senior-partner attention from intake forward.
How it works
Most Indiana commercial policyholders are surprised how little operational time the claim takes once an attorney is involved — even with carriers used to grinding down policyholders without representation.
Commercial intake protocol. Free, confidential conversation. Bring your policy declaration page, full policy with endorsements (especially ISO CP 00 10, CP 00 30, CP 04 05, applicable Equipment Breakdown endorsements), the carrier's denial or estimate letter, your forensic accountant's BI calculation if you have one, and any prior correspondence with the carrier or your broker.
Investigation and expert work-up. We engage forensic accountants on BI calculations, engineers on causation and scope, public adjusters on contents and equipment valuation, and IT/manufacturing consultants where applicable. We obtain the policy's underwriting file, the carrier's claim notes (where producible), and any prior loss runs that bear on the dispute.
Documented demand framework. We send the carrier a demand that lays out the record: the coverage owed, the documented scope and BI numbers, and the conduct — unfounded delay, inadequate investigation, deceptive lowballing — that Indiana law treats as bad-faith claim handling. Many commercial cases resolve here; once the carrier's exposure beyond the policy benefits is on the table, the offer changes.
Litigation in Indiana state court — including Indiana's Commercial Court docket — or the Southern and Northern Districts of Indiana in federal diversity. We pursue full coverage, consequential damages, lost profits, and the remedies Indiana law makes available for bad-faith claim handling, including punitive damages in egregious cases. Our trial pipeline runs the case to verdict if that's where the leverage takes us.
Questions before you engage
Yes, frequently. Brokers know our practice and refer commercial property losses; we collaborate without disturbing the broker relationship and brief brokers throughout the claim. Public adjusters often partner with us on technical estimating where coverage litigation is also needed — PAs handle the loss-side estimate, we handle the coverage-side legal posture. We don't compete with brokers or PAs; we add the litigation backstop they don't provide.
On contingency: no upfront cost, and no fee unless we recover money for you. Commercial claims vary in size and complexity, so we'll walk through exactly how the engagement works on your first call — which is free.
These are formal investigation tools the carrier can require under most commercial policies. An EUO is a recorded examination under oath; a Sworn Proof of Loss is a notarized formal claim statement. Both are mandatory if properly demanded, but both have significant procedural requirements the carrier often gets wrong. We attend EUOs with our clients, prepare the witness, and challenge defective demands. We assist with Sworn Proofs of Loss to ensure the carrier cannot use a technical defect to deny the claim. Treat any EUO or SPL demand as a serious moment to engage counsel — the carrier is preserving its denial position.
Depends on the loss profile. Appraisal under most commercial policies (ISO CP 00 10 and variants) is a binding three-person panel — each side appoints an appraiser, the appraisers choose an umpire — and the panel sets the loss amount. Carriers increasingly invoke appraisal because it can foreclose coverage litigation and can favor the carrier on contested causation questions. Sometimes accepting appraisal is the right move (clear coverage, just an amount dispute, where you have a strong appraiser). Often it's not (causation contested, BI complex, bad-faith leverage available). We run the math on both sides before responding to a carrier appraisal demand, and we handle the appraisal process if that's where the case goes.
BI calculations turn on three things: the period of restoration (how long until the business returns to pre-loss operations), the gross earnings or gross profit calculation method (depending on policy wording), and the extra-expense component. Disputes typically concentrate on (1) carrier attempts to compress the period of restoration to maximize savings, (2) gross-earnings vs. gross-profit methodology disagreements, (3) the make-up sales offset, (4) seasonal-business adjustments, and (5) the documentation supporting projected earnings. We work with forensic accountants on the BI calculation — typically retained at the start of the engagement — and the policy's BI worksheet endorsement controls a lot of the math.
Yes. Alongside our commercial work, we take on catastrophic residential losses: total-loss fire, tornado, severe hail and wind, and severe water damage. These cases run through the same Indiana good-faith framework and the same litigation team we use every day for commercial claims, so homeowners get the same muscle behind their claim.
We represent only policyholders — never carriers, never adjuster panels, never insurance defense. This eliminates the most common conflict in commercial property work: the same carriers appear repeatedly across files, and defense firms that work with those carriers cannot represent you against them. We're not conflicted out by an existing carrier relationship because we don't have any. We also screen new matters carefully — if you've been referred by your broker or PA, we confirm there's no conflict on their side before engaging.
Indiana treats an insurance policy as a contract that carries a duty of good faith. When a carrier makes an unfounded refusal to pay, delays without a reasonable basis, lowballs deceptively, or abuses the claim process, its own conduct can become part of the case — with exposure beyond the policy benefits, up to and including punitive damages in egregious cases. Indiana doesn't impose fixed day-count deadlines on commercial property claim handling; the standard is reasonableness, which makes a well-documented record the policyholder's strongest weapon. Building that record — and putting the carrier's conduct into the demand — is the core of how we move commercial claims.
Ready to talk?
Free case review. No fee unless we win.
