Insurance Claims & Litigation Support Built to Hold Up in Court

Start by reporting the loss to your insurer as soon as possible, then keep thorough records of everything related to the claim: financial records, receipts, estimates and any correspondence with your insurer or adjuster. Your insurer will assign an adjuster to assess the claim, but an adjuster's role is to manage and assess the file on the insurer's behalf, not to independently quantify your loss. For complex, high-value or disputed claims, we'd recommend speaking with a lawyer early on.

Davis Martindale works alongside legal counsel throughout the process, providing independent loss calculations that support settlement discussions or, if needed, litigation. We review the same financial records, payroll information and supporting documentation an adjuster would, but our analysis is independent of the insurer, which matters most once a claim becomes complex or contested. If you're unsure whether your claim needs an independent loss calculation, our Insurance Claims & Litigation team can help you work that out early, before positions harden on either side.

Litigation support is the accounting, financial analysis and expert witness work that helps lawyers, insurers and courts understand the numbers in a legal dispute. At Davis Martindale, this includes loss quantification, schedules for settlement, expert reports, critiques of an opposing expert's report and, where needed, testimony at trial. We're typically engaged from the early stages of a claim through to mediation, discovery and trial, so the numbers hold up whichever stage the file reaches.

To prepare a report, we review the financial records, contracts and documentation specific to the claim, then build our analysis around the facts of the file rather than a generic template. Our Insurance Claims & Litigation team works with plaintiff and defence counsel, insurers and businesses across Ontario and Canada. If you're weighing whether a matter needs litigation support, talk to our team early, before a report deadline is set.

An insurance claims adjuster is responsible for managing and assessing a claim, while an independent insurance claims accountant focuses on quantifying the financial impact of the loss. This may involve analyzing financial statements, payroll records, invoices, sales data and other supporting documentation to determine the amount of loss being claimed. The accountant can also assess historical financial performance and other relevant information to help provide a clear picture of the financial impact associated with the claim. This added financial analysis can help support the claims process by providing an objective and well-documented calculation for the parties involved. Independent loss calculations are particularly valuable when claims are complex, high-value, or the financial impact is disputed.

Economic loss in an insurance claim is the measurable financial impact of the loss, calculated using your actual financial records rather than an estimate. To quantify it, we typically review financial statements, payroll records, invoices, sales data and other supporting documentation relevant to the claim, then compare what happened against what would have happened had the loss not occurred. The result is an objective figure that insurers, adjusters and legal counsel can rely on to evaluate the claim. Economic loss calculations become particularly important when a claim is complex, high-value or disputed, since a generic estimate rarely survives scrutiny once the other side brings in their own expert.

Davis Martindale's Insurance Claims & Litigation team prepares these calculations independently of whichever party retains us, using the same standard of analysis whether we're working for an insurer, an adjuster, a lawyer or a business. If you're trying to work out whether your claim needs a formal economic loss calculation, our team can help you assess that before you're further into the process.

All three can, depending on the claim. Insurers and adjusters retain an independent loss accountant to get an objective figure to rely on when assessing or settling a claim. Lawyers, on both the plaintiff and defence side, retain one when a claim moves toward litigation and the numbers need to hold up under cross-examination. Businesses and individuals sometimes retain an independent accountant directly, particularly when a claim is complex, or simply to get a second opinion on the insurer's number.

Whoever retains us, Davis Martindale's approach doesn't change: our Insurance Claims & Litigation team applies the same independent, evidence-based analysis regardless of which side of the file we're working from. That consistency is what allows insurers, adjusters, lawyers and businesses across Ontario and Canada to rely on the same report. If you're not sure whether you, your insurer or your lawyer should be the one to engage an independent accountant, our team can walk you through how that decision is usually made.

A loss report's timeline depends on the claim's complexity and how quickly the underlying records are provided, more than anything else. Preliminary findings on a straightforward claim can often be turned around quickly, particularly when the financial records are already organized and complete. A report prepared for litigation, or one involving disputed figures, multiple years of historical data or several loss categories, naturally takes longer, since each element needs to be independently supported. Missing or incomplete documentation is the single biggest factor that extends a timeline, which is part of why we confirm exactly what's needed at the start of an engagement rather than partway through.

Davis Martindale's Insurance Claims & Litigation team works to keep our part of the process efficient without cutting corners on the analysis, issuing preliminary figures where possible so a claim can keep moving while the fuller report is finalized. Contact the team directly for a realistic estimate once we understand your specific file.