Litigation and Insurance Support

An extension of the LPI failure analysis and fitness for service practices is participation in Legal and Insurance related issues. Whether working on a litigation case or assisting in the determination of the appropriate insurance claim amount, there is value in being able to define the failure cause and the root cause accurately. Once this is done, it is important to be able to explain what happened in a way that can be easily understood. The explanation and the person doing the explaining then have to be able to withstand a critical review and the possibility of opposing positions.

The LPI staff has a group of engineers that have experience with litigation and insurance claims. We work hard to assure that the background is well understood and that the basic principles that affect the cause of the failure or degraded condition are clear and concise. The work that is valuable to be performed in the laboratory is defined and, with concurrence of interested parties, is performed.

LPI has experience in a wide range of failures and degraded conditions. The areas include structural degradation and failures, equipment failures and malfunctions, pressure vessel and piping failures, and other areas. These have occurred in infrastructure, energy generation and delivery, transportation, and in other industries. The failures in these areas can be caused by overload, corrosion, flawed design, improper operation, inadequate maintenance, or a host of other either individual or combined causes.