Valiont
Modern Claims Should Be Collaborative, Not Contentious

David Reeth, Partner and Managing Director

When Joseph Becker and David Reeth first met while serving together on a university board, they were at very different points in their careers. Becker was already an established, well-respected figure in the insurance claims industry and had founded Cara Solutions. Reeth was a student leader whose analytical mind, curiosity, and instinct for solving difficult problems quickly stood out.

Their connection began as a mentorship, grounded in a shared belief that good work starts with advocacy, service, and a willingness to stand beside clients when circumstances become most challenging. Over time, that mentorship grew into a business partnership.

After Reeth joined Cara Solutions, he and Becker began shaping the firm’s next chapter. They expanded its capabilities, invested in new technology, and refined an approach to claims consulting that combined technical expertise with close, responsive client service.

That evolution ultimately led to Valiont, a specialized forensic accounting and insurance claims consulting firm built to help policyholders navigate complex losses with greater clarity and control. Today, Valiont assists organizations with items such as business interruption claims, large claims portfolios, and major property events, to name a few.

Valiont’s role extends well beyond calculating the financial value of a loss. The firm brings together the information and stakeholders involved in a claim, helps clients understand its full impact, and provides the structure needed to keep the recovery process moving forward.

The firm’s guiding philosophy is reflected in its approach to every engagement.

“In an industry often defined by delays, disputes, and fragmented communication, Valiont believes that modern claims should be collaborative, not contentious,” says David Reeth, Partner and Managing Director.

Redefining the Claims Experience

The strength of an insurance program is not truly revealed when a policy is purchased or renewed. It is revealed when a significant loss occurs.

In the aftermath of such an event, an organization must do far more than assess damaged property. It may need to quantify lost income, document additional expenses, evaluate operational disruption, collect financial and production data, and coordinate with insurers, adjusters, accountants, engineers, attorneys, and other advisers.

At the same time, the organization is often trying to restore operations, support employees, serve customers, and manage the wider effects of the loss. The claim becomes one urgent priority among many.

For large commercial organizations, the difference between a well-managed claim and a poorly managed one can be substantial. It may affect millions of dollars in recovery, extend the disruption by months, and place a heavy administrative burden on internal teams.

In complex claims, the challenge is often not finding information but bringing it together. Financial records, operational data, consultant reports, and claim updates may be spread across different teams and systems, making it difficult for any one person to see the full picture.

Valiont’s expertise is to bring those pieces together.

The firm approaches claims with the belief that better outcomes are possible when the parties involved work toward a common objective: resolving the loss fairly, accurately, and efficiently. Rather than allowing the process to become unnecessarily adversarial, Valiont focuses on creating structure, improving communication, and establishing accountability from the beginning.

Valiont introduced defined workflows, centralized oversight, consistent reporting, and dedicated claims management resources. These changes gave the client a clearer picture of the portfolio and made it easier to identify delays, assign responsibility, and determine which claims required immediate attention.

“According to our internal analysis, claims programs inherited from competing providers averaged 864 days to resolution,” says Reeth. “Under Valiont’s management, average closure times were reduced to 216 days.”

The improvement did not come from simply pressuring claims toward settlement. It came from establishing a process in which information was easier to access, next steps were clearly defined, and the people involved understood their responsibilities.

Speed alone, however, is not the goal. In business interruption claims, an early settlement may occur before the full financial consequences of a loss are known. Revenue effects, increased expenses, customer losses, production constraints, and supply-chain complications can continue to emerge over time.

Valiont works to move claims forward efficiently without compromising the policyholder’s ability to document the complete loss. The objective is a timely resolution, but also one in which every legitimate component of the claim has been identified, evaluated, and supported.

Where Complexity Meets Expertise

Although Valiont serves clients across a range of industries, business interruption remains one of the firm’s deepest areas of expertise.

Property damage is often visible. A damaged building, machine, or piece of equipment can be photographed, inspected, and evaluated. The financial consequences of an interruption are less tangible and often much more difficult to isolate.

A single event can affect production, staffing, revenue, occupancy, suppliers, customer relationships, and operations at other locations. In a large or interconnected organization, the impact may spread across facilities, business units, and markets.

“The importance of accurately calculating business interruption losses is about far more than numbers on a spreadsheet,” says Joseph Becker. “Business interruption losses impact real businesses, employees, customers, and futures that have been disrupted. Our role is to listen carefully, understand the full impact of the loss, and build a clear, credible claim that helps the client move forward.”

Doing that requires more than reviewing a company’s accounting records. It requires understanding how the business actually operates.

Valiont begins by thoroughly studying the client’s organization. The team examines how products are manufactured, how services are delivered, where revenue is generated, how costs behave, and how those activities appear in the company’s financial statements and operating data.

This operational understanding is essential because the financial impact of a loss cannot be evaluated in isolation. Revenue trends, production volumes, occupancy levels, supply-chain dependencies, customer demand, labor costs, and the performance of individual locations may all influence the calculation.

A credible business interruption claim therefore needs to do more than arrive at a number. It must explain how the loss affected the organization, demonstrate the relationship between the event and the resulting financial impact, and present the analysis in a way that insurers and other stakeholders can understand and evaluate.

That capability has made Valiont a trusted partner across sectors ranging from commercial real estate and telecommunications to retail, hospitality, manufacturing, agriculture, and construction. While each industry presents unique operational challenges, the underlying objective is to translate complex business realities into clear, defensible financial claims.

Bringing Visibility to Large Claims Portfolios

As organizations grow, claims management often becomes less about overseeing a single loss and more about maintaining control over an entire portfolio.

A large real estate owner, for example, may have dozens or even hundreds of active claims at any given time. Each may involve different insurers, adjusters, consultants, documentation requirements, financial exposures, deadlines, and settlement discussions.

When that information is spread across spreadsheets, emails, reports, and disconnected systems, even experienced internal teams can struggle to maintain a complete view of the portfolio. Senior leaders may understand the overall financial exposure without knowing which claims are progressing, which have stalled, or where intervention is needed.

Valiont recognized that managing claims at this scale requires more than periodic status reports. It requires a centralized source of reliable, current information.

Through a secure dashboard, users can view portfolio-wide performance and then examine individual claims in greater detail. Information about claim status, financial exposure, documentation, recovery efforts, and settlement progress is brought together in one place.

For internal teams, this creates a consistent source of information. For executives, it provides a broader view of the portfolio without requiring them to sort through extensive administrative detail.

The value of that visibility extends beyond convenience. A centralized system allows organizations to identify delays earlier, compare claim performance, direct resources where they are most needed, and better understand where significant financial exposure remains. It also creates accountability by making responsibilities, outstanding items, and progress easier to track.

Technology, however, is useful only when the information behind it can be trusted. Behind the technology is an equally important commitment to data integrity. Large claims portfolios often involve significant volumes of financial information, and even minor errors can affect outcomes. Valiont's emphasis on data validation and analytics helps ensure that the information driving decisions remains accurate, current, and actionable.

The result is a level of transparency that many organizations have historically struggled to achieve within the claims process.

Acting as an Extension of the Client’s Team

Major losses rarely happen at a convenient time. They occur during weekends, holidays, severe weather events, and periods when an organization may already be under intense pressure. In those first hours and days, decisions about documentation, evidence, communication, and operational tracking can influence the direction of the claim.

Clients need support quickly, not after the situation has already become difficult to control. Valiont has built its operating model around that reality. Whether the loss involves a fire, physical property damage, or a developing business interruption, the firm prioritizes rapid deployment and early engagement.

The goal is to establish structure before uncertainty and fragmented communication begin to compound. Early involvement allows the team to understand the circumstances of the loss, identify the information that will be needed, and help the client create an organized path forward.

That role continues well beyond the initial response. Many clients come to view Valiont not simply as an outside consultant, but as an extension of their internal risk management function. The firm works closely with company leadership, finance and operations teams, brokers, insurers, adjusters, engineers, accountants, and legal advisers.

Its team helps coordinate information, clarify responsibilities, guide decisions, and maintain progress throughout the life of the claim. Rather than focusing on one isolated piece of the process, Valiont helps clients understand how the many pieces fit together.

This level of involvement can be especially valuable for large organizations. Following a major loss, internal teams must remain focused on restoring operations, managing employees, protecting customer relationships, and continuing to run the business.

By taking responsibility for the financial and procedural demands of the claim, Valiont allows those teams to direct more of their attention to the organization’s broader recovery.

For clients, the result is not only a better-managed claim, but the confidence of knowing that experienced specialists are standing beside them throughout the process.

Bridging Experience and Innovation

The insurance claims industry has always depended on experience, but experience alone is no longer enough. Organizations now expect faster access to information, clearer reporting, stronger analytics, and greater transparency throughout the claims process. They also expect their advisers to understand not only insurance and accounting, but the operational realities of the businesses they serve.

Meeting those expectations requires a balance between established expertise and modern capabilities.

That balance is central to Valiont’s evolution. Originally founded in 2001 as Cara Solutions, the firm recently rebranded as Valiont. The new name reflects a broader vision for the future while preserving the same ownership, leadership, and commitment to clients.

The transition represents more than a change in identity. It reflects a company building on decades of claims experience while placing technology, data, and innovation at the center of how that expertise is delivered. That focus has allowed it to deepen its expertise, refine its processes, and develop tools designed specifically for the challenges its clients face.

“When a significant loss occurs, success depends on more than coverage alone,” says Reeth. “It depends on having the right expertise, the right processes, and the right partner guiding the recovery effort.”

That perspective reflects the principles that first connected Becker and Reeth: advocacy, service, and a commitment to standing beside clients when the stakes are highest.

By combining forensic accounting expertise, claims management capabilities, proprietary technology, and a collaborative approach, Valiont has positioned itself as more than an outside consultant. It serves as a strategic partner to organizations navigating some of their most difficult and consequential moments - and when an insurance program is finally put to the test, that partnership can make all the difference.