My name is Gus Hargrove. I am the co-owner, along with my wife Sandra, of Canadian Organic Maple Co Ltd. Canadian Organic Maple Co Ltd is one of the largest certified organic maple farms in the world. It consists of the main sugarhouse where the maple sap is processed into maple syrup, maple sugar as well as app 128,000 individual taps in the maple trees. These taps are connected to each other and to the sugarhouse with a network of tubing from 5/16 to 3 inches in diameter. There is app 15,000 km of pipes spread out over 700 hectares of forest.
On July 5, 2012 post tropical storm Arthur devastated Canadian Organic Maple. Nearly 40,000 taps were destroyed when the post tropical storm ripped through. Trees were uprooted and or broken off everywhere. All roads and trails were blocked. Without insurance the future of the business was in serious trouble. Fortunately we did carry insurance for some of the loss but it was very difficult to assess the actual damage. Also we had little or no experience with insurance claims so the process was intimidating and stressful.
When our insurers informed us that a specialty appraiser from the Toronto area would be brought in to assess the loss we were concerned. However during the appraisal process, it became obvious that Tool Inventory and Appraisal Systems is the expert in this field. TIAS was thorough, professional, fair minded and treated us with courtesy throughout the process. In the end the loss was manageable and Canadian Organic Maple Co Ltd is still operating as a viable business in rural New Brunswick. I hope we never have another loss like that. We would like to thank Tony Auchincloss and the team at TIAS for their courteous nature and understanding.
Gus Hargrove, Sandra Hargrove, Canadian Organic Maple Co Ltd.