A regional food processing and distribution company headquartered in central Alberta has operated for 22 years, growing from a single cold storage warehouse into a multi-facility operation serving grocery retailers and food service customers across western Canada. The company now maintains 3 distinct locations: a primary processing plant that it owns outright, valued on its books at approximately $8.7 million; a leased distribution centre where it has invested over $1.2 million in tenant improvements including specialized refrigeration systems and loading infrastructure; and a secondary cold storage facility acquired 4 years ago through the purchase of a smaller competitor.
The company's commercial property insurance program has evolved incrementally over the years, with coverages added as new facilities came online and endorsements layered onto the base policy without systematic review. The current policy package includes a commercial property policy written on an all-risk basis for the owned facilities, equipment breakdown coverage obtained through a separate insurer following a compressor failure 6 years ago, and business interruption coverage with a 12-month indemnity period. The tenant improvements at the leased distribution centre are insured under a tenant's legal liability endorsement, though the adequacy of the stated values has not been reassessed since the initial lease was signed 7 years ago.
The company operates a fleet of 14 refrigerated transport vehicles that move product between facilities and to customer locations, and maintains approximately $2.3 million in mobile processing equipment that travels to agricultural sites during harvest season. A board-approved expansion project is now underway, with construction of a new processing wing at the primary facility expected to cost $4.1 million over an 18-month build period. The general contractor has provided a certificate of insurance for builders risk coverage, but the terms and the interaction with the company's existing property coverage have not been formally reviewed.
The chief financial officer, who assumed responsibility for insurance matters after the retirement of the company's longtime operations manager, has identified several concerns in advance of the upcoming policy renewal. The coinsurance clause in the primary property policy requires values to be stated at 90 percent of replacement cost, yet no professional appraisal has been conducted in 8 years, during which construction costs in the region have increased substantially. The exclusion language in the base property policy for mechanical and electrical breakdown has never been mapped against the equipment breakdown policy to confirm there are no gaps. The business interruption coverage was originally structured when the company had only 1 facility, and the interdependencies among the current 3 locations raise questions about whether the existing coverage would respond adequately to a loss that disrupted operations across the enterprise.