Chamber of Commerce gears up to
help insured recover blast losses

Sets up operations room

The Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Beirut and Mount Lebanon (CCIA-BML) said it has set up an operations room to help businesses and individuals affected by the explosion in the Port of Beirut get compensation payments from insurance companies for losses. The service is also open to non-members.

CCIA-BML has teamed up with local law office Alem & Associates and Italy-based claim management advisory firm E-Technical Consulting to set up the operations room which will help policyholders process their claim files.

The operations room, which is located in the CCIA-BML premises, will provide its services free of charge. If policyholders want to commission it to negotiate with insurance companies to collect the claims, they have to pay a reasonable fee.

The overall value of the policies of the insured that were affected by the blast is around $4 billion, according to Mohamed Choucair, Chairman of CCIA-BML.

Mohamed Alem Senior Partner at Alem & Associates said that each insurance policy will be studied separately and policies will follow their existing clauses and conditions as no amendments could be made in this regard. He said they will make sure that the ‘fresh money’ local insurance companies will get from foreign reinsurers for the claims are paid in ‘fresh’ dollar not in ‘lollar’ or lira. “If insurance companies fail do so, they will become suspect of being involved in illicit enrichment,” Alem said.