Expert Witness Blog

Insurance expert witnesses may write reports and opine on property insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and insurance companies. In the wake of homes destroyed throughout the country, attorneys at Alvarez & Barbara, LLP, explain replacement cost and extended replacement cost:

Unfortunately, many of those homeowners will soon discover that their insurance won’t cover all of their rebuilding cost.

Replacement cost. This covers the cost of repairing or replacing your home, based on a set dollar amount. However, one of the problems with this coverage is that it often times does not reflect the increase in the cost of construction and labor since you took out your policy in your community. If your community is destroyed by a natural disaster, then that means that there could be higher demand for such construction and labor needs, and that will inevitably push up the cost of repairing and replacing your home.

Affidavit of service expert witnesses may testify and write reports on service of process, legal notice, and related topics. The National Association of Professional Process Servers reports on their website:

Proposed Maryland Legislation Harmful To People and Threatens Legal Due Process

The National Association of Professional Process Servers (NAPPS), along with the Mid-Atlantic Association of Professional Process Servers (MAAPPS), have grave concerns about pending legislation that establishes rules that allow for people to be served legal documents by mail rather than in person.

Insurance claims expert witnesses may write reports and testify on property insurance, insurance regulations, and related topics. Recently, Business Insurance reported:

Japanese insurers have paid almost $2.27 billion to cover approximately 125,000 claims associated with earthquake damage to personal dwellings stemming from the March 11 tsunami and earthquake that devastated Japan. According to the General Insurance Association of Japan (GIAJ), the number of claims is expected to increase as efforts continue to restore heavily damaged areas of the country.

Coverage for dwelling claims, which have accounted for a large portion of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami-related claims thus far, are reinsured exclusively by the Japanese government. For this reason, foreign reinsurers will experience little if any exposure to these particular claims. The total insured property losses from the Japan earthquake and tsunami have so far been estimated at between $18 billion and $26 billion.

Process service expert witnesses may opine on acceptance of service, affidavit of service, jurats, judicial summons, and more. The National Association of Professional Process Servers reports on their website that New York process servers were granted a partial restraining order on a new law:

The New York State Professional Process Servers Association (NYSPPSA) was granted a partial restraining order on March 21 to allow the Association and the City of New York to continue negotiations over new regulations for professional process servers within the city limits.

The association and its members remain hopeful that differences can be resolved amicably and to the satisfaction of all parties. Prior to the court filing, NYSPPSA and the City of New York had been negotiating in good faith and were making progress ahead of a March 21 deadline. NYSPPSA chose court action only after a request to extend that deadline was denied. In the event the matter cannot be resolved satisfactorily, further court proceedings were set for April 27.

Trucking expert witnesses may write reports and testify on federal motor carrier safety regulations, truck maintenance, trucking and transportation rules, and related topics. Transport Topics reports that American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have together written to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking the agency to begin researching how standards for crashworthiness for heavy trucks could benefit professional truck drivers.

“NHTSA has continuously developed crashworthiness standards for automobiles and light trucks, but to date has generally not applied crashworthiness standards to commercial trucks,” the two groups wrote to NHTSA chief David Strickland this week.

Read more: ttnews.com.

Commercial design expert witnesses may write reports and testify on interior designs, space planning, green retrofits, and more. Here, BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

The U.S. Department of Energy announced in May the release of the first in a new series of Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs) to aid architects and engineers in the design of highly energy-efficient office buildings. The 50% AEDG series will provide a practical approach to commercial buildings designed to achieve 50% energy savings compared to the commercial building energy code used in many areas of the country. This 50% AEDG for Small and Medium Office Buildings is the first in a series of four to be released in the coming months. These commercial building guides support President Obama’s goal to reduce energy use in commercial buildings 20% by 2020 and will help drive demand for energy-saving products made in the United States.

Sales forecasting expert witnesses may testify on sales promotions, retail sales, sales revenues and more. Referenceforbusiness.com describes QUALITATIVE FORECASTING METHODS.

Qualitative forecasting techniques generally employ the judgment of experts in the appropriate field to generate forecasts. A key advantage of these procedures is that they can be applied in situations where historical data are simply not available. Moreover, even when historical data are available, significant changes in environmental conditions affecting the relevant time series may make the use of past data irrelevant and questionable in forecasting future values of the time series.

Read more: Forecasting http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Fa-For/Forecasting.html#ixzz1OXPlUsZp

Health care administration expert witnesses may opine on medical record administrators, health information managers, health services managers, and more. On its website, the American Health Information Management Association offers this information on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which fast tracked the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs).

Ensuring patient information is protected and secure from any intrusion is a priority in health care. It is crucial for organizations to understand and implement the privacy and security controls needed to access health information while ensuring patient privacy. According to Healthcare IT, healthcare experts have identified the top seven trends in health information privacy for 2011.

1. Health information exchanges, many of which will be launched by inexperienced and understaffed organization