Consumer products change often. Sometimes its related to the manufacturers concept of an improved design, and sometimes its related to safety issues. Just because there is a change in design does not mean the manufacturer changed the design to make the product safer.
Example: a water filtration unit has a cap and filter housing. The filter is located inside the housing. The housing screws into the cap. The old design was involved in two separate losses. Each subject cap exhibited the same depth of threads in the plastic male end of the housing. We purchased two new units, and noticed the threads were deeper in the exemplar units.
Hint: if the cost of an exemplar unit is not disproportionate to the loss, purchase several. Try purchasing them from the same source from which the assured purchased the unit. The benefit is that you/your expert can look at an undamaged unit, perhaps even disassembling one, to assist in analyzing the cause of the loss.
If the claim goes into litigation, the attorney will be able to discover all the product changes, the manufacturers reason for the change, and claimed damaged from the product from other claimants.
In the above example, the two subject caps, as well as the two exemplar caps, exhibited the same defect. Particularly, when the plastic cap was molded, the cap was not round, as designed, but oval. This meant that even with deeper threads, there was not enough force from the filter threads into the cap to hold it securely, and it failed spontaneously, letting water flow throughout the kitchen. (21278)
Example: a water filtration unit has a cap and filter housing. The filter is located inside the housing. The housing screws into the cap. The old design was involved in two separate losses. Each subject cap exhibited the same depth of threads in the plastic male end of the housing. We purchased two new units, and noticed the threads were deeper in the exemplar units.
Hint: if the cost of an exemplar unit is not disproportionate to the loss, purchase several. Try purchasing them from the same source from which the assured purchased the unit. The benefit is that you/your expert can look at an undamaged unit, perhaps even disassembling one, to assist in analyzing the cause of the loss.
If the claim goes into litigation, the attorney will be able to discover all the product changes, the manufacturers reason for the change, and claimed damaged from the product from other claimants.
In the above example, the two subject caps, as well as the two exemplar caps, exhibited the same defect. Particularly, when the plastic cap was molded, the cap was not round, as designed, but oval. This meant that even with deeper threads, there was not enough force from the filter threads into the cap to hold it securely, and it failed spontaneously, letting water flow throughout the kitchen. (21278)