“No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.” - Edward Bernays

Imagine this alternate reality for a moment.

For the past 20 years or so, property insurance carriers have relied on one source to determine the price and availability of materials from homes damaged during a loss. That source is ILIE Laboratories Inc. The prices provided by ILIE Labs were always a bit higher than the carriers thought they should be, and often, the reports would incorrectly advise that materials were discontinued, causing them to spend billions of dollars providing full replacement value.

Now imagine they find out that ILIE Labs isn’t really a company. It’s more like a service or a subsidiary of their parent company, “Global Public Adjusters Group.”

Would that not call into question every report ever provided by ILIE Labs? Would the carrier feel as though this is fraud and GPAG misrepresented itself as an “unbiased third party” when nothing could be further from the truth?

Well, do I have some news for you. This alternate reality is actually very real.

ITEL Labratories Inc. Isn't Who They Have Claimed

ITEL Laboratories Inc. has been the main source of material testing in this industry for decades and is actually owned by a company named Global Claims Services. Much like our fictional reality above, GCS and ITEL have been providing suspect dollar amounts and inconsistent material testing to policyholders for almost two decades. All under the false pretense that they were a third-party independent laboratory.

About 5 months ago I started to speak up about this clear negligent misrersnation, and I was loud. I even spent $1000 on Linkedin ads to broadcast it directly to their front door.

What did they do about it? They scrubbed their websit clean of any mention of being an indepedn source of truth.

The internet doesn't forget though.

To look at who itel is we need to look at their parent company GCS. Have you never heard of GCS?

That’s what they were going for.

When you head over to www.globalclaimsservices.com, you will be redirected to an ITEL Labs landing page. ITEL is a subsidiary of Global Claims, yet their website routes you to their product… Even more oddly, GCS cannot be found in any way, shape, or form on ITEL’s website. Almost as if they wanted to have no connection to ITEL for any reason. I wonder why?

So what does Global Claims Services do? According to CB Insights,

"Global Claims Services (GCS) is an insurance service provider whose mission is to help property insurance companies effectively settle claims worldwide. GCS is committed to custom-fitting its service offering to meet the unique needs of each international insurance market. Custom fitting its services. "

Services like ITEL Labs.

As a side note, the legal definition of slander or defamation occurs when the information provided to others is false. Now that we got that out of the way…

Ready for things to get even more gross.

Introducing Robert Logan, CEO of GCS and ITEL from 2010 to 2022.

Bobby is a busy guy, not only was he defrauding policyholders for 12 years as president of both of these companies, he was also catching it on the back end with anote business "Discontinued Materials, Inc."

He doesn't like to talk about that though

What do they do? Per their website:

Discontinued Materials, Inc. (DMI) provides homeowners and roofers shingles that have been discontinued to allow for small repairs to be completed.  It’s not uncommon for certain types and styles of shingles to be discontinued and it’s difficult to know where stockpiles of these products can be located.

We search throughout the United States continuously to find and purchase these stockpiles of discontinued shingles so they are easily found and purchased for repair purposes.  These products are available and can be directly shipped to the property in need of repair."

I don't need to expand on the multiple layers of bull shit that is in the statement above.

Are you wondering if these shingles are at least stored in a warehouse for you to order after Bob and ITEL Independently tell you how they are no longer available?

Well this is their storefront

Every ITEL report that you received advising there was a match for the shingles in question when there wasn’t, every dollar amount for carpet or siding that was absurdly low, pointed to a pattern of inaccuracy or incompetence. However, that does not appear to be the case. This information suggests a deliberate attempt to undervalue the costs associated with the repairs needed on property insurance claims. The consistent underestimation skewed the financial assessments and potentially compromised the integrity of countless policyholders and billions of dollars.

What drew my initial suspicion of ITEL was the reports I would receive from them when I worked as a project manager in restoration. It wasn’t the fact that they were always incorrect that made me suspicious, but rather, the simple removal of the green check or red X, which used to be on their reports. The green check signified that they were able to find a material match of “Like, kind, and quality,” or the red X advised that the material had been discontinued. If material is discontinued, and the carrier cannot bring the policyholder whole again by covering the cost of repairs to a uniform appearance, they have to replace everything. Turning a $2,200 roof repair claim into one that could cost them $20,000.

Why did this matter?

They started to provide a match for any material you sent in to test. It didn’t matter if you sent them a piece of the ceiling from the Sistine Chapel. They would provide you with the next closest match, which could be found at Lowe’s for $1.23 per sqft.

Do you remember the days when an ITEL report looked like this?

Just another systematic move from Global Claims Services to:

“Help property insurance companies effectively settle claims worldwide. GCS is committed to custom-fitting its service offering to meet the unique needs of each international insurance market.”

So what can you do about it?

Even if a class action lawsuit were to be levied against them, there is no way any dollar figure would come close to the billions they have defrauded policyholders and contractors out of for the last 30 years, but I guess that’s an option.

They are, however, based in Jacksonville, Florida, where I believe State Farm acquired the entire state recently. Or at least their legislature and governor have been bought out.

I am unable to comment on any work that is being done actively to bring justice to the millions of policyholders GCS has defrauded, but just know things are being done. Until then, all we can do is stop sending material items to them for testing. Another idea would be to collect every ITEL report we have and run an analysis on them to prove this price fixing in black and white.

As a homeowner, I would contest any adjuster attempting to “match” the materials in your home based on an ITEL Report based on this information. If you have already been a victim of their misrepresentation, I would seek legal advice.

Share this article on any platform you can think of so that every search for ITEL on Google is always paired alongside this information. Global Claims Services declined to comment on this article. Feel free to reach out if you have a story of your own about ITEL Labs, every voice matters in this.

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