The default assumption after a commercial loss is that the affected space closes until it is finished. Frequently it does not have to.

What makes partial operation possible is containment — sealed barriers and controlled air that isolate the work from the rest of the building, so the damaged area is genuinely separate rather than simply taped off. Combined with protected access routes and work scheduled outside your hours, a surprising amount of a building can keep trading.

What usually prevents it is not the damage but safety and code: if the loss has affected life-safety systems, power, egress or structural elements, those govern and the area closes until they are resolved. We will tell you which situation you are in on the first visit rather than after the equipment is set.

If your building is sprinklered, the usual cold-weather advice is exactly backwards, and this catches people every winter.

A standard property policy generally requires you to maintain heat and keep the water supply on in a sprinklered building. Shutting the water off to protect the pipes can forfeit coverage for the loss you were trying to prevent. Fire code also requires wet sprinkler piping to be kept above freezing — a minimum of 40°F — and a system found to contain ice is treated as impaired, meaning the building has lost its fire protection whether or not anything has leaked.

Sprinkler piping also runs through exactly the places that freeze: unheated attics, concealed spaces, loading docks and stairwells. If you manage a sprinklered property, a pre-winter walk of those areas is worth more than any insurance you can buy. See our frozen and burst pipes page for the detail.

Business income claims settle low for one reason above all others: nobody started keeping the record until weeks in, and by then it is reconstruction rather than documentation.

From the first day, somebody should be logging: hours or days closed and which areas; payroll paid to staff who could not work normally; orders, bookings or covers lost with the supporting data; and every extra expense incurred to keep operating — temporary space, rented equipment, overtime, expedited shipping. Extra expense is often its own coverage and is routinely left unclaimed.

Pull your prior-year figures for the same period early, too. That comparison is what a carrier will want, and gathering it while your accountant is not also dealing with a crisis is considerably easier.

Empty commercial space is where the worst winter losses happen, for the obvious reason: a pipe that fails in an occupied building is found in minutes, and one that fails in a vacant unit runs until someone happens to walk in.

It is also where coverage is most likely to fail you. Commercial policies commonly contain vacancy provisions that exclude or reduce water damage, sprinkler leakage, vandalism and glass breakage once a building has been substantially unoccupied beyond a stated period. The definitions of “vacant” and “unoccupied” are not the same and both matter.

If you are carrying empty space through a Michigan winter, two things are worth doing: read the vacancy clause on that specific policy rather than assuming, and arrange a documented walk-through schedule so a failure is found in days rather than months. We can build a freeze response plan for a portfolio before the season rather than meeting you at 3am in January.