EDITOR'S NOTE

At the core of insurance recovery is the principle to return to conditions prior to a disaster. For those involved with the hotel industry, a compelling question is that of matching décor.

This issue of Adjusting Today, “Pair, Set and Match: Replacement of Undamaged Hotel Furnishings to Ensure a Uniform Look,” by Michael Raibman, sets the table for a discussion of why a hotelier has the ability to make a claim for the replacement of both damaged and undamaged furnishings.

Raibman examines case law and policy language to put together examples that show how hotels can recover a uniform look to their hotel after a disaster has damaged a portion of the property. Raibman demonstrates, “The question thus should not be whether there is ´pair and set´ coverage when hotel furniture is damaged, but rather the scope of that coverage.”

Our readers—not just those directly involved in the hospitality industry, or the agents and brokers servicing them—should value this issue for its insight into the implicit logic of the property insurance damage recovery process.

What would you think if you walked into your hotel room and the furniture did not match? Unless you were staying at a hip New York or Los Angeles hotel that prides itself on its “eclectic” furnishings, you would not be impressed. Similarly, would you be a happy customer if you stayed in a lovely room in a hotel on one trip, but on the next trip you stayed in a different room in the same hotel, and found it filled with older, different furnishings? Of course not.

Hotels understand this, and thus ensure that all of the rooms in a given hotel are furnished the same way (excepting suites or other “specialty” rooms). Moreover, hotels have responded to customer demands for better furnishings not by changing the “case goods” in random rooms, but instead by announcing with great fanfare that they will change over all of their rooms to include stylish new furniture, flat panel TVs, and improved