Insurance Salvage Goods

When an insurance company pays out the claim amount, the goods pass into the insurer's ownership and are put up for sale. We assess the lots we buy from these sales and offer them to wholesale buyers. The work here is not buying cheap goods; it is reading correctly what the damage has actually affected.

How the damage arises

After a fire, flood, transport accident, power surge or warehouse incident, goods are partly or wholly harmed. The same lot also contains items that were not affected at all; the damage is often limited to the packaging and to one part of the lot.

Assessment

Three questions are decisive: does the product work, is repair economical, is it saleable. A water-damaged textile lot becomes saleable after cleaning, whereas in an electronics lot with electrical damage the repair cost usually exceeds the value of the product. We draw this distinction by product group.

Product groups

The lots that come up most often are white goods, electronics, hand tools, hardware, industrial products and textiles. Electrical items are function-tested; products with crushed packaging are repackaged.

Wholesale

Assessed lots are sold wholesale only. The intact, packaging-damaged and partially damaged grades may go to different buyers; we determine the sales channel grade by grade.

Disclosure

Insurance salvage goods are sold as they are; the history of the product is not concealed from the buyer. The damage condition and the grade are recorded on the sales document. This transparency is the precondition for a repeat business relationship.