Metro Insurance to Cover LP, Bridgestone Arena Repairs

Metro Nashville officials believe they won’t max out the city’s $100 million flood insurance policy. But that’s only because the worst damage is along the Cumberland River, where there’s a much lower cap to what insurance will cover.

Insurance adjusters are still tallying the damage to some of the city’s landmark buildings like LP Field and Bridgestone Arena. Both will need many of the electronics and much of the flooring on lower levels replaced. Metro Legal’s B.C. Cobb says insurance should cover it all. He doesn’t expect the city to reach a $100 million cap.

“We’ll have more information as the numbers come in. We don’t have the numbers on all locations yet, but preliminary, we don’t feel like we’re going to reach [the cap].”

But there is a much lower limit to what insurance will pay for structures in flood zones like the MTA headquarters, an NES service station and the completely submerged K.R. Harrington water treatment plant. The total insurance money available for those repairs is just $5 million dollars. Some of the numbers still missing would be just how much those sites will cost to restore.

Nashville’s government-owned entertainment venues are racing to fix flood damage in time for their summer concert schedules.

The flooding at LP Field ruined carpet in offices and locker rooms and fried electronics and telephone systems, all of which need to be replaced almost immediately. Titans chief operating officer Steve Underwood says equipment for the CMA music festival starts arriving in a little more than a week.

“Getting the communications system back up and running, getting our video connections and the loading dock back up and running, those are things that unfortunately can’t wait for very long.”

The team still isn’t estimating total damage to LP Field, but the city’s insurance policy is expected pay for all of the repairs, so long as they are less than $25 million.

Bridgestone Arena sustained less damage, but the building also has less time to be restored to working order. A James Taylor show is still scheduled for Saturday night, and the arena’s management says it will be ready.

View a new gallery of flooding in Nashville’s largest buildings here.