“We installed signage at the Beauregard festival in Hérouville-Saint-Clair,” recalls the manager of Pub N ‘Pose Vincent Nicolle. It was then that I was warned that our warehouse was on fire. “On the night of July 5 to 6, 2018, the site of the sign maker in Verson, near Caen, ignited. A sudden fireball, which can be seen on neighboring surveillance cameras, ravages the premises.
At that time, Pub N ‘Pose was then in full expansion: “We had forecasts of growth in our turnover of 42%, and contracts in France and in Europe”, remembers the manager. Two and a half years later, if the company is still running, more than half of the employees are no longer there (there are 10 today). And the case is still not settled, because of a dispute with Aviva, the insurer of the company at the time of the tragedy.
A vehicle at risk of self-combustion
After the fire, the first conclusions of the insurance expert implicate the digital milling machine and the electrical system. “We reproach him for not having integrated in his report a vehicle which was in the building”, slips Vincent Nicolle. However, this model seemed to present risks of self-combustion. The manufacturer had also embarked on several waves of recalls of its cars, since 2017.
Eleven months after the incident comes the time for legal expertise. In the meantime, “the site has not been protected,” points out the manager. And the famous vehicle… is no longer there. “A few weeks before the expertise, a breakage was mandated by Aviva to intervene. They extracted it, which also damaged the frame. While the instruction was not to touch anything! “
A capital index has disappeared at the break
An email from Aviva evokes “a serious fault” of the operator, who should not have moved the car. The manager of Pub N ‘Pose then played bad luck since the car was destroyed the day before the visit of the forensic expert.
Under these conditions, it is difficult to determine with precision the origin of the fire. Impossible, therefore, to target the responsibilities and guarantees to be activated, according to the various insurance contracts. However, “the contract on the vehicle was superior to those which covered the rest,” grumbles Vincent Nicolle. With the disappearance of the vehicle, we cannot turn against the insurer, nor, possibly, against the manufacturer. “
Very quickly, the compensation was suspended. Pub N ‘Pose receives 500,000 euros in property damage. But the question of operating loss will prove to be more thorny. “Normally,” explains the manager, “we look at the turnover, and we integrate the growth forecasts into the calculation”. The company and Aviva will not do the same analysis. The insurer made an offer below the accounting forecasts of the Caen company. Only 350,000 euros are granted. “We had a knife to our throat,” says Vincent Nicolle, who had to separate from 13 employees between 2018 and 2020 and reinject significant personal funds to save his baby.
No outcome in court before 2021
Placed under the protection of the Nanterre court, Pub N ‘Pose survives. Little by little, she found clients “but remained far from her level before the fire”. In the procedural file, heavy of 200 pages, the estimates of his chartered accountant assess the damage at some 11 million euros over five years. The case will be settled in court, which ordered an injunction to conclude at the end of last October. Aviva, which has “declined to comment on an ongoing case,” and Pub N ‘Pose are expected to be set in 2021, or even later if appealed.
